Anyone on this forum know how to treat a longterm shoulder condition called ‘‘frozen shoulder’’? Have tried naproxen and iboprofen, but neither seem to work.
[quote]
Frozen shoulder: a comparison of western and traditional Chinese approaches and a clinical study of its acupuncture treatment.
By Emad S Tukmachi
Summary:
A pilot study using acupuncture in the treatment of 31 patients with frozen shoulder showed marked improvement in 24 and improvement in 6. Patients with idiopathic or arthritic frozen shoulder responded better than those with post-traumatic aetiology. There was no relationship between response to acupuncture and age.
Although this study involved no control group, the high level of improvement together with the author’s clinical experience suggests that acupuncture should be considered an effective option in the treatment of frozen shoulder; the more so since conventional medical therapy has a low expectation of benefit. Aetiology, pathology and clinical management are described in both Western medical and traditional Chinese terms and details of acupuncture treatment methods are given.
Key words
Acupuncture, Age response, Capsulitis, Clinical study, Frozen shoulder, Periarthritis, Traditional Chinese medicine.[/quote]
Source: medical-acupuncture.co.uk/jo … un/9.shtml
Bump. I’ve been diagnosed with “frozen shoulder” and am getting physical therapy. Don’t know if the OP is still around. Has anybody else dealt with this condition either with accupuncture as Juba posts or PT? The doc prescribed Dorsifex and Mogen for me. I have yet to consult the bible on these meds. TIA.
I had one acupuncture session and the conditon has never returned. I used to get it every few months; not had it now for more than five years.
Often get the cold shoulder, though …
I studied acupuncture and Chinese medicine for five years and had a very strong preference for the herbal side believing the acupuncture was mumbo jumbo UNTIL I gave the prescribed treatment to someone with frozen shoulder and cured it in one session. I then treated it many more times until eventially I started doing it at parties for a laugh.
No shit, it works.
HG
Brilliant! I’m setting up an appointment with my acupuncturist as soon as possible. I’ve had frozen shoulder in the right arm for about a year (finally just faded off on its own) and now it’s in the left. The orthopedist just said, “Nothing we can do, lots of women in their 40s get it and either it goes away or it doesn’t.” 
Thanks for the feedback.
To continue the discussion, did any of you folks get frozen shoulder as the result of a specific injury/strain or was it slow to come on/because of repetitive use?
I’m wondering if I had a strain at first and it turned into the frozen shoulder. It’s also possible I didn’t understand the doc’s diagnosis fully. One of the boons of receiving medical care at your local PT clinic.
And Straydog, I’ll remember not to give you the cold or frozen shoulder when next our paths cross.
BTW, instead of calling it frozen shoulder–adhesive capsulitis–I’m going to call it “torn rotator cuff” as that sounds much cooler. E.g. “What’s the matter with you?” “Oh, man, I tore my rotator cuff…” See what I mean?
What’s wrong, the Chinese term," fifty year (old) shoulder" not cool enough for you?
I wouldnt go calling it a torn rotator cuff, because that just screams “bone doctor, knock me out and insert a spinning knife and trim some of this errant cartilage.”
HG
the condition ‘torn rotator cuff’ is a result of acute (sudden) or semi-acute trauma to the ligaments stabilising the end of the humerus, the upper arm bone, in its position in the very shallow cup made by the scapula and the clavicle, not a very strong structure from a mechanical point of view (but allowing a wide range of movement of the arm). any tear here to the capsule of ligaments means the shoulder slips as it turns and thus does not have the full range of movement, or stability or strength in many positions.
it is not quite the same as frozen shoulder, which is a more inclusive term that incorporates other reasons for the joint to be less flexible, such as chronic inflammation (long-term swelling) from arthritis or other autoimmune disease, some of which become more common in women in their 40s and 50s. frozen shoulder can also result from longer-term moderate inflammation of the shoulder, for example from a life spent playing tennis or golf, where there is no rotator cuff tearing either but a small amount of continued irritation of the muscles and ligaments.
long term inflammation will induce the body’s repair systems, and over-ambitious tissue repair can sometimes result in adjacent structures knitting together when they should be free to slide over each other.
western medicine finds this a challenging problem, as the pattern of events in inflammation and injury repair are complex to say the least. acupuncture is far more effective at this, as it is in many other musculoskeletal situations where adequate drug or physical therapies don’t exist. it is not as effective as pharmacology at treating infections and other conditions, though. it is as much a self-consistent science as western science is, and though i seem to be able to feel qi flowing in such treatments, I’m still buggered if I know what it is. as are most other scientists studying acupuncture, and the ones that think they know what’s going on still can’t explain it adequately to the rest…
i used to teach physiology in a university that among other things had a large Chinese medicine department, with a large research push going on to give western scientific footing to acupuncture .
Thanks for that info uradacus. Good stuff.
I went for my second PT sesson today and showed some improvement/increased motion. But you know when they yank your arm behind you and pull up? That didn’t feel so good.
According to my therapist, frozen shoulder isn’t limited to people who have had shoulders for fifty years. Maybe I’ll just stick with “adhesive capsulitis”. That sounds a bit cooler, wouldn’t you say, Huang Guang Chen?