If you’re suffering with frozen shoulder, there is no magic pill or instant fix.
However, there are ways to speed up recovery, minimise your discomfort and improve your movement without relying on painkillers, injections or surgery.
In this article, we will discuss how to cure frozen shoulder quickly without painkillers, injections or surgery with expert advice and insight from our physiotherapy team at T4 Physio
What Is A Frozen Shoulder?
Frozen shoulder is a condition that affects your shoulder joint, and means your shoulder can be painful and stiff for months, sometimes years.
As well as the physical pain, our patients who come to us with frozen shoulder struggle with their usual day to day activities and it can leave them reliant upon their relatives.
The pain and discomfort is caused by the surrounding tissue become inflamed, which means it becomes tighter and causes pain.
Over time, this can create scar tissue, and a reduction in fluid that keeps the joint lubricated and moving freely. When this occurs, it’s hard for your shoulder joint to move freely which is why your range of motion is limited.
What Is Frozen Shoulder Pain Like?
Frozen shoulder pain is usually a dull, or achy pain in the affected shoulder. This pain can also radiate to the muscles surrounding the shoulder, and in the upper arm.
It is also common for frozen shoulder pain to become more uncomfortable at night, which makes sleeping harder.
If you are experiencing severe pain, and struggling to move your shoulder or upper arm, our advice would be to seek a professional opinion, as opposed to self-diagnosing and trying to treat this at home. To arrange a free physiotherapy consultation with one of our expert physiotherapist, complete our simple web form: Arrange My Free Physiotherapy Consultation
What Causes Frozen Shoulder?
There is no clear reason why people develop frozen shoulder, however there are certain people who are more susceptible to it.
For example, patients with frozen shoulder who visit our physiotherapy clinics are most often women, aged 40 and older. It can still affect younger people, and men, but this is less common.
There is also a higher risk for people who have had injuries or surgeries that stop your shoulder and arm from moving normally, and those with certain medical conditions.
Why Is Frozen Shoulder Pain Worse At Night?
If you have frozen shoulder, you might be wondering why frozen shoulder pain is worse at night.
At night, blood flow naturally slows down in combination with a reduction in other bodily functions like kidney filtration. Over the course of a night, slow blood flow and reduced water filtration by the kidneys lead to higher water retention. This means that your internal pressure increases across your whole body, and your already inflamed shoulder, becomes more painful.
This problem occurs for all inflammatory conditions, not just frozen shoulder, however there are things that you can do to reduce the impact, and make a good night’s sleep more likely.
How To Sleep With A Frozen Shoulder
A lack of sleep, or poor sleep, can really wreck our moods, leave us with low energy and also have a big impact in the ability for your body to heal. Frozen shoulder, especially during the early stages, can make it very difficult to sleep.
To help you sleep with a frozen shoulder, some simple tips are:
- If you sleep on your side, don’t sleep on the affected shoulder. Whilst this might sound obvious, you might find that you’ve rolled over during the night to your preferred side and woken up in agony. To avoid this, sleep on your non-affected side, and place pillows behind your back to stop you rolling over.
- If you sleep on your back, place a pillow under your affected arm, with your hand resting on your stomach.
- Avoid sleeping on your stomach if at all possible, as this position is going to place your shoulder joint in an unstable position which could lead to pain, and even further damage.
- Use light stretching exercises on an evening which can relax some tightened muscles connected to the shoulder joint and allow you to fall asleep with less pain.
How To Cure Frozen Shoulder Quickly Without Painkillers, Injections Or Surgery
To cure frozen shoulder, our patients tell us that the common solution offered to them by their GP is to take painkillers to mask the pain.
Very few patients who visit their GP will get referred to an NHS physio.
However, appointment waiting lists are extremely long…
And due to financial pressures, NHS physiotherapy appointments are also often rushed, fail to get to the root cause of the problem, and fail to deliver significant improvement for a lot of patients.
This understandably leaves people suffering with frozen shoulder frustrated.
Without physiotherapy, your frozen shoulder may recover on its own – but this is a LONG and PAINFUL process.
This is where private physiotherapy is a perfect fit for people who feel let down by the free healthcare option, or just want to be out of pain and back to their normal life as soon as possible.
At our physiotherapy clinics, we understand patients don’t want to rely on painkillers, and are worried about the potentially dangerous side effects of these (or more extreme measures like injections or surgery).
To help our patients, we always try to achieve pain relief through natural methods and our team share a couple of them below which should help you relieve frozen shoulder pain.
- Natural pain relief advice which reduces inflammation in the shoulder joint
- Lifestyle advice so that you aren’t making the problem worse, and can spend less time in pain throughout your day
- Tailored exercise plans specific to you which speed up recovery and minimise the chance of shoulder problems returning in future
- Stretching and massage therapy to loosen tight muscles and stiff joints
And whilst there is no instant fix, physiotherapy can speed up recovery from frozen shoulder and make it much more manageable.
This enables you to carry on with your life, and once the frozen shoulder has passed, keep your shoulder joint healthy to reduce the chances of it returning.
We can also help you understand how to strengthen your shoulder and minimise the likelihood of problems in future.
Arrange your free physiotherapy consultations with our simple webform, or if you prefer to talk over the telephone, you can call us on call us on 033017 59838 and speak to our team to arrange a FREE assessment or book your appointment!