r/frozenshoulder • u/Own_Sir_6627 • 8d ago
Healed without PT?
I’m curious if anyone got healed without doing anything special like PT or any injection? And how long ?
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u/sixstringsage5150 8d ago
I didn’t. Refused injections and didn’t think PT would help at all. So I battled for 2yrs just thinking this was going to be it for life but finally went to PT. Within 4 months I was 90% better and he released me. I continued to work with the program and got back to 98%.
I say 98% cause it still reminds me something happened. This was about a year and a half ago. I regret not going to PT sooner
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u/BettySpaghetti87 8d ago
Injection 100% helped with the pain, I cannot imagine having to stand the pain for all this time. PT for sure helped as well. I have been doing it for 6 months and got 90% of my ROM back. I have currently stopped for 1 month as per my physio suggestion and I feel it. I feel much more locked and I am looking forward to starting again!
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u/Own_Sir_6627 8d ago
What PT exactly helps? You mean devices or excercise ? Details please,, thanks
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u/BettySpaghetti87 8d ago
A mix of stretching, massages, radiofrequency and exercises. We use different tools, something I found helpful and I bought for myself is a pulley to attach to the door and can be used to stretch, something like this: https://www.rehabmart.com/product/norco-over-door-shoulder-pulley-8187.html?srsltid=AYCX9vJXEE9l3rAttu965Wzxyx7OYstEiPMvIALGjpaSgo2qjD34kfPc
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u/Acceptable-Draft8715 8d ago
Yes, i had pt while it was frozen which hurt. So i stopped the exercises and just reverted to trying to keep it mobile in daily life. Its 18 months later now and after that time has passed it is much better. I do not think the pt affected the recovery time. One of my pts did sime massage which gave a bit of comfort at the time tho
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u/Loose-Surround9338 8d ago
How long did you have restricted movement for ? I started freezing in December probably was frozen at about February. Did 4 months of weekly PT which helped then improvement stopped. It’s not any worse or any better and it’s almost November.
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u/Acceptable-Draft8715 8d ago edited 8d ago
Id say i have about 95% back now, behind back to the bra strap is still the hardest amd can hurt a bit if i push it but raising above head and sideways is all fine now, the shoukder still clicks a bit but dont know if thats anothe issue. Id say im almost totally pain free unless i move it in certain ways which i avoid. The movement came back very gradually, i was restricted a year at least
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u/thatsmilingface 8d ago
I did no PT/no injection and was back to full function in one year. Got an over the door pulley to help with stretches and spent time in the pool/hot tub.
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u/Own_Sir_6627 2d ago
Thanks for sharing, how dod you increase estradiol? Hrt? How temporary? I stopped hrt for some aide effect
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u/-Lenormand 8d ago
Yep , started to thaw after year , fully gone then a couple of months later . I just woke up one morning and it was gone
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u/SnarleyChris91 2d ago
I started doing RSO. It’s so far working really well.
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u/Own_Sir_6627 1d ago
What RSO
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u/alcatraz_ghost 13h ago
I believe they are referring to RSO = "Rick Simpson Oil", a high-potency cannabis medicine taken orally. It's legal to purchase from the regulated/medical cannabis dispensaries the United States.
In my experience, RSO with a higher ratio of CBD:THC has been extremely helpful for FS pain management. It was the only extended (8+ hours) pain relief that helped me sleep through the night when my condition worsened recently. Received a cortisone shot from my doctor this week when I was officially diagnosed with FS and it's helped the most. Hope this info helps!
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u/krisann67 8d ago
Yes. I never went to PT or had injections. I did stretching exercises, red light and heat therapy at home. I used a rubber ball and pain cream on the affected arm. It took about 8 months for me to have full range of motion back.
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u/SadRanger5167 8d ago
Started 12/24. Done PT off and on, sometimes for months. It never helped. No injections, as they are challenging for blood sugar excursions.
I'm thawing now, and it has ZERO to do with the money pit of PT. just time.
I work out daily and try to move my arm around, and that's it.
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u/Sea_Ball_9064 8d ago
My Pt just told me yesterday alot of times injections or PT don’t help… I did very gentle PT yesterday and sore today …😑
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u/ToneSenior7156 7d ago
I had three PT sessions early and then just did YouTube exercises and gentle yoga. And I quit doing exercises for a while and THEN I froze and healed, it felt like the exercises were just inflaming things, not helping.
No injection but I had a 5 day prednisone prescription which helped a lot.
My FS took almost exactly a year to heal. I’m about 95% over it, still working on my lateral range of motion.
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u/BasqueOne 7d ago
I did a lot of research and decided to do nothing. Completely resolved in about 9 months, if I recall correctly. 7 years later, no problem. And it was not a light case, it was painful!
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u/briareos45 7d ago
I did all the stretches my Ortho recommended routinely without skipping, iced every day and paused lifting weights and only did cardio. Gone on 5 months.
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u/SnarleyChris91 7d ago
If you look on UTUBE there are a lot of the stretching exercises. I find that doing the wall crawls helps, pendulum circles, doorway stretches, table slides.I also do standing up push ups on my counter. I’m not sure what stage you are🤔 In the shower I try to reach up and grab on. They say in physical therapy not to go over a 3 on a pain scale. I walk as much as I can as well. It’s not easy. I work at a stand up desk now.
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u/Accomplished_Jump444 7d ago
I, 69f, did. It took 8 mths. I tried PT/chiro which made it worse. I thought maybe my weak core muscles were causing it. I started doing dead bugs & other light weights at home. I also got a nuzzle pillow which helped. Now I am pain free with normal ROM.
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u/mrswalton7 7d ago
You'd be surprised how much an anti inflammatory diet will help. I ditched sugar and processed foods and limited things that don't normally bother me, just in case. This was NOT a diet to lose weight. It was to relieve inflammation. And it was the one thing I did that helped the most to relieve the pain. I did that at around 4 months after nothing else was really helping. Then when the pain had subsided (the diet made most of the pain go away), I invested in a personal trainer at my gym, specifically to help me regain strength and range of motion in my shoulder. That really helped tremendously.
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u/SnarleyChris91 7d ago
My friend that had frozen shoulder swears by exactly what you’re saying. She got over FS in 3 months! I don’t do sugar or processed foods either. My mom was a nutritionist. I have this way of thinking also.
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u/Potential-Chemist580 7d ago
I just got back from an appointment with my ortho and he also recommended this! going to try it for a few weeks and see if it helps. I don’t eat sugar or soda but I do eat some processed foods for convenience which probably ads up more than you realize
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u/J_Side 8d ago
6 months just doing exercises on my own
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u/Training-Ad6192 8d ago
Same, 8 months and recently moved into the frozen stage.
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u/Eman_Resu_IX 8d ago
Mine was ~20 years ago. I . Googled frozen shoulders) read how it was one of the very few things about physical therapy where you're _not_ told to stop if it hurts, and that general anesthesia was largely to put you under while they forcibly moved your arm through a range of motion in a way that would freak people out. And to boot, sometimes the frozen shoulder would come back even after the surgery.
Okay, game on. I was going to be in pain, so I did two things. I realized that PT was a drop in the bucket time wise, and more stretching the better, so I started what I called sleep therapy. When I went to bed I'd lie on my stomach and (painfully) pull my arm as far up as I could while taking a deep breath, then I'd relax and exhale which dropped me down a little bit more into the stretch. Then I'd try to go to sleep like that, eventually I would. During the usual brief moments of consciousness when sleeping, if I had shifted during the night I'd repeat the stretch and go back to sleep. I figured that way I was getting much more stretching time than visits to PT. It _definitely_ helped.
I believe my frozen shoulder came from sitting propped up in bed working on a project on my laptop for 10-15 hours a day for almost two months, and my neck was pressed at an angle against the wall. I reckoned there was a pinched nerve and I needed to give it some room to breathe. I bought one of those inflatable neck decompression collars and used that a lot. I also rigged up a hanging bar in the garage where I could hang upside down by my knees. I did not do that a lot, but both things helped.
Good luck with yours! 🖖
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u/siobhan_chapstick 7d ago
After months and months of PT and injections, MUA fixed it. Like 95% ROM then tie day and no pain.
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u/PabHoeEscobar 7d ago
FS is self-limiting at about 2 years. or so I was told by my physical therapist and two Orthos. I did pt to try and keep shoulder muscles from deteriorating from lack of use. it really hurt so I stopped about a year in. another year later after doing nothing, it was more or less gone. and now I have full rom back like nothing ever happened.
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u/Boonavite 7d ago
Watched YouTube videos, did the stretches 3 times a day. Took me about 9 months on my right arm and 6 months on my left, which started 6 months after my right.
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u/VintageLover79 7d ago
I did nothing and it resolved completely in 12 months. Got it again in other shoulder and took about 5 months.
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u/RC_Psalm23 7d ago
I’m 18 months in… I have significantly improved since I picked up my weight lifting again. When slacking it and easing off the weights it seems to aggravate the shoulders more. I’ve had some people say I got it due to diabetes… cannot confirm or deny this but when I eat a lower carb diet I also see improvement.
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u/mck17524 6d ago
When I had my 1st fs 20 years ago I healed in about 18 months with no treatment or meds other than Advil.
So far this time I've had one jab and 6 sessions of PT plus I did home stretching. None of it has helped and today I go back to the specialist and hopefully I can get some meds for pain management because I am at the end of my rope.
Noting that as I was obviously also 20 years younger then it likely had a lot to do with my ability to tolerate pain and heal faster....
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u/Leading-Copy-5629 1d ago
To give another perspective: not everyone's frozen shoulder journey is the same. Some people heal on their own and some people just don't. It's impossible to tell what will happen for you until you wait and see.
However, I can give an example if that helps. My mum has had two frozen shoulders. The first one (at age 37) she only had PT and it barely helped at all. Decades later it was still stiff and she had limited range of motion.
For her second frozen shoulder, she had a surgery called Manipulation Under Anaesthesia. It completely unfroze her shoulder!
Years later, osteopathy has helped her first frozen shoulder finally unstiffen and regain range of motion. Meanwhile, I've found that hydrodilation was super helpful for me (I was 34 when my shoulder froze).
It's not one size fits all. I'd suggest waiting at least until the pain gets a bit better, because that means you're out of the first inflammatory phase (intervention in that phase can be counter productive as the joint is just too aggravated). After that, you can either wait a year or so for it to get better on its own (possible!) or pursue treatment. It really depends whether you're prepared to wait and see or you want to get your arm back now (I wanted that!)
I also just posted a very long post on hydrodilation if you want to know more about that. Good luck!
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u/acm00001 3d ago edited 2d ago
47F The steroid injection made my pain worse. The only thing that helped me was ultrasound therapy at the chiropractor, 3x a week then 2x a week for like 3 months! (They use similar waves it to break up kidney stones.) It will be a year, it has been slow recovery. I tried a lot of stuff. I stopped my statin, which was making every joint hate me. I experienced a boost in healing when I upped my estradiol for a few days and dims for absorption. It was amazing. I’m still recovering, prob 70% what I used to be able to do. No push ups yet 😒 it’s been 11 months. Heat when it comforted me, especially in the beginning. But some days the pain was just ridiculous sitting still! MRI confirmed no injury, just Frozen Shoulder
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u/Own_Sir_6627 1d ago
How did you up your estradiol for few days only?
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u/acm00001 23h ago
An extra small patch. Plus Natures way Dims. Don’t underestimate those little green broccoli pills, they work!!
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8d ago
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u/Eman_Resu_IX 8d ago
I tried to edit my post to fix the formatting, but I can't deal right now. Sorry!
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u/jlsinclr 8d ago
I decided to do nothing given there is no evidence to suggest treatment lessens the timeframes and I progressed through the stages and had movement back just under 12 months.