# Anyone working through adhesive capsulitis in the shoulder?



## slohr (May 22, 2008)

Yep. Been 30 years coming. Crash in '87 led to dislocated shoulder. They said at that time it wasn't "tight," that I would need to have surgery in 20 years. '07, shoulder waking me up at night. Worked it out more with light weights. '12, got some PT. Life piled on, and I guess between stress, work, and wayyyy to long of reach on a bike (stores have always sold me a bike that was too big... almost 5-8 and telling me a need a 56 with 120mm stem..., and a mountain bike with an even longer reach), my desk posture got terrible. My shoulders and neck drooped horribly forward.

Long story short, Could lift my arm forward to perpendicular, then only about 10° further. About the same on the side. I have been working with a massage therapist and chiropractor, and we have been developing proper posture, careful stretching, and light weights. It's going painfully slow (about 18 months in), but the improvement has been consistent. Kind of like watching a clock. Anyone else have to deal with this kind of thing, and if you do, do you have any tips?


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## EJ_92606 (Jul 11, 2004)

Yeap, Had that diagnosis after my collarbone surgery. In fact just asked a similar question to you a few months ago in the Injury forum. Hang in there and stick to the PT. I'm finally back to pretty much 100% range of motion. Still working with the PT on hip issues. Can't say there's any one thing that worked, but my PT is a big believer in dynamic stretching and dealing with the whole body chain. Good luck.


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## slohr (May 22, 2008)

I appreciate it! I'm about 18 months in. Retraining my posture and getting bits of range back. Going to give up rigid SS though for now! Maybe get back to that in the future.


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## EJ_92606 (Jul 11, 2004)

slohr said:


> I appreciate it! I'm about 18 months in. Retraining my posture and getting bits of range back. Going to give up rigid SS though for now! Maybe get back to that in the future.


So did you have surgery 18 months ago? Maybe go to a PT for evaluation? There's something called needling that I read about in the injury forum that I had never heard of but seems to be helpful for some. I'm certainly no expert on the subject but at 18 months I'd be ready for a change of professionals.


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## slohr (May 22, 2008)

EJ_92606 said:


> So did you have surgery 18 months ago? Maybe go to a PT for evaluation? There's something called needling that I read about in the injury forum that I had never heard of but seems to be helpful for some. I'm certainly no expert on the subject but at 18 months I'd be ready for a change of professionals.


No surgery. Some bone spurs and stuff, but after some secondary consulting, the bone spurs are supposedly not that atypical. Mainly lots of tissue adhesions. Don't realize how complex the shoulder is until you have to work with it. Lots of bad spots in the lats, serratus, subscap, pect minor, biceps tendintis. Took years getting in this fix, it's going to take a while to get out of it.


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## EJ_92606 (Jul 11, 2004)

By the way, when my surgeon told me I had adhesive capsulitis he did say if I can't quite get my range of motion back with PT that he could go in and clean all that stuff out to get my my range of motion back. Glad I didn't have to go that route but that might be an option for you.



slohr said:


> No surgery. Some bone spurs and stuff, but after some secondary consulting, the bone spurs are supposedly not that atypical. Mainly lots of tissue adhesions. Don't realize how complex the shoulder is until you have to work with it. Lots of bad spots in the lats, serratus, subscap, pect minor, biceps tendintis. Took years getting in this fix, it's going to take a while to get out of it.


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## slohr (May 22, 2008)

EJ_92606 said:


> By the way, when my surgeon told me I had adhesive capsulitis he did say if I can't quite get my range of motion back with PT that he could go in and clean all that stuff out to get my my range of motion back. Glad I didn't have to go that route but that might be an option for you.


Thanks for passing that along. If I get to the point where I feel I'm not progressing, I will look into it for sure.


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## dru (Sep 4, 2006)

A little late chiming in but I gave myself that overdoing it at my buddy's gym. I broke my collar bone many years ago and have bone spurs, tendonitis and arthritis in that shoulder. This somehow morphed into frozen shoulder. I spend the past year in a lot of pain before getting an MRI and diagnosis.. Did about 3 months of physio in the late spring which made a massive difference. I've got about 95% of my ROM back but still have a bit of irritation in the affected tendon. Not fun but I'm back at the weights and mostly pain free when riding.


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## slohr (May 22, 2008)

Thanks for the reply! I'm about 19 months in. If I lived in a place with more familiarity of shoulder issues such as this, I would probably be further ahead. Still a good bit of stiffness, and very limited external rotation, but my massage therapist and chiro have been doing a good job in figuring it out. It is actually a lot more than just the shoulder--extreme pect tightness, arthritis (similar to what you describe), and a really stuck shoulder blade. Able to ride pretty well, but staying away from rigid riding (except for the road). Glad to hear that has worked out for you.


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## pitdaddy (Aug 6, 2013)

Broke my humerus 7 weeks ago tomorrow. Didn't realize immobilizing my arm could snowball into affecting the shoulder. My ortho doctor and PT person told me to do the "stir the pot" motion in the first couple weeks. I must have protected my arm to much. By week three they had me doing a couple passive movements. That's about the same time I noticed pain going over the shoulder in certain areas doing certain motions.

It wasn't until about week 4 I realized the torture I went thru with PT made those pains go away for a few hours. So I tried to up my game doing the three moves (stretches) PT doc instructed me to do 3 times a day.

I'm 56 and hope to get at least 10 more years riding singletrack trails. You guys have given me courage.


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## pitdaddy (Aug 6, 2013)

dru said:


> A little late chiming in but I gave myself that overdoing it at my buddy's gym. I broke my collar bone many years ago and have bone spurs, tendonitis and arthritis in that shoulder. This somehow morphed into frozen shoulder. I spend the past year in a lot of pain before getting an MRI and diagnosis.. Did about 3 months of physio in the late spring which made a massive difference. I've got about 95% of my ROM back but still have a bit of irritation in the affected tendon. Not fun but I'm back at the weights and mostly pain free when riding.


what do you mean by "physio"?


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