The Stiff or “Frozen” Shoulder
Although not related to the cold weather of winter, I thought it would be helpful to discuss a common shoulder problem known as “adhesive capsulitis” or “frozen shoulder.” Frozen shoulder most often affects people between the ages of 40 and 60 and is more common in women. Normal shoulder function depends on pain-free, fluid, and unrestricted motion of the joint. As such, patients afflicted with frozen shoulder can be significantly debilitated with everyday activities such as work, recreation, and sleep impacted. Though the cause of frozen shoulder is not clearly understood, there are certain known risk factors. Below we’ll delve into the symptoms, risk factors, and possible treatment options for frozen shoulder.
Symptoms
Frozen shoulder results from thickening of the tissue that surrounds and stabilizes the shoulder joint making it tight and difficult to move. The tissue may also become significantly inflamed and or irritated making motion of the shoulder painful. Frozen shoulder often follows three predictable phases each with slightly different symptoms as outlined below.
•A dull ache and onset of worsening pain during the first stage (“freezing phase”).
•A slight reduction in pain during the second stage (“frozen phase”) where the shoulder becomes significantly stiff with very little mobility in the shoulder.
•A slow return to normal and pain-free motion in the shoulder in the final stage (thawing phase).
Each phase may last from a few weeks to several months with the complete course of the condition lasting for 18-24 months.
Risk Factors
There are certain factors that can make a person more likely to develop frozen shoulder. These includes:
•Diabetes
•Thyroid dysfunction (hypo- or hyperthyroidism)
•Parkinson’s disease
•Cardiac disease
•Immobility. If a person becomes immobile for a period of time, usually do to a surgical procedure or injury, then their risk for developing frozen shoulder increases.
Treatment
The most common treatment for frozen shoulder is non-surgical with the aim to reduce irritation and pain in the shoulder and then slowly regain full motion through gentle stretching exercises.
Common treatment methods include:
•Anti-inflammatory medicine
•Steroid injections
•Physical Therapy – both home stretching and office-based treatments
In rare cases where non-surgical treatment fails to resolve the condition, surgery is generally very successful at restoring full shoulder function. The procedure is done athroscopically, or through tiny incisions, and involves gentle manipulation of the shoulder with the patient anesthetized as well as release or cutting of any tight scar tissue around the shoulder.
Interesting blog! Is your theme custom made or did you download it from somewhere? A theme like yours with a few simple tweeks would really make my blog stand out. Please let me know where you got your design. Cheers
Greetings! I know this is kind of off topic but I was wondering which blog platform are you using for this site? I’m getting sick and tired of WordPress because I’ve had problems with hackers and I’m looking at options for another platform. I would be awesome if you could point me in the direction of a good platform.
Hey there this is kind of of off topic but I was wanting to know if blogs use WYSIWYG editors or if you have to manually code with HTML. I’m starting a blog soon but have no coding knowledge so I wanted to get guidance from someone with experience. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Terrific post however , I was wanting to know if you could write a litte more on this topic? I’d be very grateful if you could elaborate a little bit more. Thanks!
Hi there I am so grateful I found your weblog, I really found you by accident, while I was searching on Digg for something else, Anyways I am here now and would just like to say thanks for a incredible post and a all round entertaining blog (I also love the theme/design), I don’t have time to read it all at the moment but I have book-marked it and also included your RSS feeds, so when I have time I will be back to read much more, Please do keep up the fantastic work.
Hi there, I found your web site by the use of Google while searching for a similar topic, your website came up, it looks great. I’ve bookmarked it in my google bookmarks.
This was actually provided a short while ago and additionally I was still for it firstly. In the long run despite the fact that it was determined that the full community was participating utilizing this design. Archiving that would certainly be best for a consumer.
Hi there! Quick question that’s totally off topic. Do you know how to make your site mobile friendly? My weblog looks weird when viewing from my iphone 4. I’m trying to find a theme or plugin that might be able to fix this problem. If you have any suggestions, please share. Many thanks!
They finalized the olders individuality residing was able to smoke cigarettes her overall lifespan, ate a good deal of chocolate month after month as well as would not benefit from athletics. Is certainly not that astounding?
I enjoy what you guys tend to be up too. Such clever work and coverage! Keep up the great works guys I’ve included you guys to blogroll.
Amazing blog! Is your theme custom made or did you download it from somewhere? A theme like yours with a few simple tweeks would really make my blog jump out. Please let me know where you got your design. Many thanks|
I’m really enjoying the theme/design of your web site. Do you ever run into any web browser compatibility issues? A number of my blog audience have complained about my website not working correctly in Explorer but looks great in Firefox. Do you have any solutions to help fix this issue?
Have you ever thought about writing an ebook or guest authoring on other websites? I have a blog based upon on the same subjects you discuss and would love to have you share some stories/information. I know my viewers would enjoy your work. If you’re even remotely interested, feel free to shoot me an e mail.
My programmer is trying to persuade me to move to .net from PHP. I have always disliked the idea because of the costs. But he’s tryiong none the less. I’ve been using WordPress on several websites for about a year and am worried about switching to another platform. I have heard great things about blogengine.net. Is there a way I can transfer all my wordpress posts into it? Any kind of help would be really appreciated!|
I’m not that much of a online reader to be honest but your blogs really nice, keep it up! I’ll go ahead and bookmark your site to come back in the future. All the best
Hey this is kinda of off topic but I was wondering if blogs use WYSIWYG editors or if you have to manually code with HTML. I’m starting a blog soon but have no coding skills so I wanted to get guidance from someone with experience. Any help would be enormously appreciated!
Hey there excellent website! Does running a blog like this require a large amount of work? I have virtually no understanding of coding but I was hoping to start my own blog in the near future. Anyhow, if you have any suggestions or tips for new blog owners please share. I understand this is off topic nevertheless I just wanted to ask. Cheers!
I think the admin of this web site is actually working hard for his web page, because here every stuff is quality based stuff.|
I was wondering if you ever thought of changing the page layout of your blog? Its very well written; I love what youve got to say. But maybe you could a little more in the way of content so people could connect with it better. Youve got an awful lot of text for only having 1 or 2 pictures. Maybe you could space it out better?
Everyone loves what you guys are usually up too. This kind of clever work and coverage! Keep up the good works guys I’ve incorporated you guys to blogroll.
Good day! I know this is kind of off topic but I was wondering which blog platform are you using for this site? I’m getting sick and tired of WordPress because I’ve had issues with hackers and I’m looking at options for another platform. I would be great if you could point me in the direction of a good platform.|
Wow that was unusual. I just wrote an very long comment but after I clicked submit my comment didn’t show up. Grrrr… well I’m not writing all that over again. Anyways, just wanted to say great blog!