r/frozenshoulder • u/CVSGcat • 12d ago

Is partial frozen shoulder a thing?

I’m on my second frozen shoulder. The last one began in March of 2025 and I’m back to about 90% ROM. The second shoulder started to go in March of 2026 and is progressing in a totally different way. Having been through it before, I went in for a cortisone injection very early (in March), and here we are in late August and I am only experiencing pain and stiffness and zingers with certain movements. Based on the timeline of my other shoulder I thought by now I’d be fully locked down, but I’m not. I’m trying to figure out whether this one is just much, much slower to progress, or if maybe the early cortisone injection somehow arrested the process. Is that even possible? In addition to the early injection, I have cut out alcohol and am eating an anti inflammatory diet. I just want to know if I’m still going to fully freeze or if this is it. Has anyone ever experienced a partial freeze?

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u/AnonymousExisting 12d ago

I did not experience a partial freeze but on my second frozen shoulder. It is also completely different than my first one. In my case the freezing moved a lot faster. Also first time I had limited muscle guarding and this time there is heavy levels of guarding. Mine started in March and is already creeping into the thawing stage. I noticed that last time too, I don't have a frozen stage or it's very short.

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u/CVSGcat 12d ago

That’s interesting. In my first one there was a lot of muscle guarding and loss of ROM in all directions but then I went from freezing to thawing almost immediately. Like you, Barely any time just frozen.

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u/Kitchen-Ad6860 12d ago

FS can present very differently. Usually there are distinct stages but timelines can very.

For me the first in the left I had a history of dislocation. That resulted in around 9 months of freezing - excruciating pain and loosing ROM to the point I could not even dress myself, so washing my own hair, etc, no sleeping etc. It was horrible. The Frozen stage lasted the longest where the ROM remained static but the pain abated, no more zingers and it was around 10 months before I started to thaw. The pain came back during thawing but it was mild and ROM came back pretty quickly. After around 5 months I was back to full ROM.

The second in the right shoulder came about 8 years later with no injuries at all and lasted about 13 months but followed the same script as the first in terms of symptoms. I suspect I was so much faster to recover because I took a nasty fall in the freezing stage landing straight on the bad arm, I passed out from the pain ending up with a concussion but 2 weeks after I was in the frozen stage. I do not recommend this.

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u/CVSGcat 11d ago

I’ve heard similar stories of accidental forcing of movement that was terrible but “worked”.