The Slow Unwinding

It's about a year since my shoulder began to unfreeze. At this point, I have complete range of motion. Over the last several months, my shoulder still gets a little sore from typing a lot. It's often stiff and a little painful when I wake up - something that it did not do at all when frozen! This lasts only until I shower and warm it up and move it a little. The pain is very mild and does not wake me up at all - just something I notice when I get out of bed.

I have experienced a slow reversal - it seems to me - of the original freezing process. For a long time, the area that was most "triggered" still was my rhomboids. Those let go and what is still giving me trouble is my superspinatus and the scalenes. Now, if I work on those with massage, my shoulder will feel virtually normal for a day or two.

I just began doing yoga again. I find that I can do yoga freely without restriction. Yoga also seems to do much the same things that massage does for the shoulders. Down dog is especially good for releasing the muscles. It will be interesting to see if a month of yoga finally "cures" me.

Update

I've recovered full range of motion from my shoulder now. I can lay it flat on the floor now by my side. I still have slight muscle soreness in the shoulder - in the infraspinatus and the rhomboid. It is improved by massage or strength training. I am working out with dumbbells and doing pushups to strengthen the shoulder - and both arms in general.

While my arms don't feel exactly the same - I no longer have any actual disability. It's been a long time since I had a muscle spasm. If you still have frozen shoulder, I feel for you. This is the most painful experience of my life. I am glad that it's over for the most part.

I will continue to work on my arm strength and report back in a couple of months.

Almost Perfect

Since my last post, I have been doing yoga and weight training every other day faithfully. By now, I can do all this without any problems with my shoulder. It's really almost normal now! There is a small amount of stiffness and pain when I stetch it to extreme positions. But, there is no pain or stiffness at all most of the time when I just raise my arms over my head - even stretching very hard. My arm no longer spasms at all and I no longer experience aches in my wrist or forearm. To all intents and purposes, I have full functionality. My arm has better range of motion than many people without any shoulder problems at all.

When I massage my shoulder, there is still a little tenderness in my infraspinatus - the muscle on top of the shoulder blade. It seems to go away with the lightest massage. My rhomboids are still sore in one place. But this also goes away with massage a lot of the time.

I am able to do the Total Gym and pull downs on the Soloflex without any problem.

At this rate, I expect to be totally normal, without any reminders of my shoulder problem in a month or two at most.

My progress

I am down 20 degrees of external rotation as my main range of motion limitation now. This weekend, my arm "freed up" a little more. I have been diligently working on fascia bumps in my pectoral area. Wow - I never realized these were fascia problems. I always thought they were lymph nodes or something. My arm feels much freer from working on them.

How do you find fascia problems and fix them. Well - trigger points are these very painful spots in your muscles. But fascia bumps are less painful little lumpy spots - often right under your skin or the fat layer that goes with in. These will melt away if you knead gently on them for a minute or two. Just keep working on them. It seems to work best if you start from one end and work towards the other.

I've had these little bumps across my chest and under my right arm for decades! My right breast has always been somewhat tender. So know I find out this is caused by stress on the fascia - from overuse of my right arm and being round shouldered.

This means I may actually be more functional that I was when I get through with all this self-therapy.

Weight training

Now that my shoulder has improved and is only a little frozen, I find that weight training really makes it feel better! I get almost as much relief from doing light presses as I do from any other therapy.

The ART therapist told me to do light presses against the wall with a pillow between my palm and the wall. Just pressing my weight. My frozen arm is very weak, so this is actually worth something. However, I think it is even more effective to do a light forward press on the Total Gym. I set the angle very low and push forward with my hands on the stirrups. My whole shoulder feels better for hours afterwards.

I worked for almost an hour on the shoulder today, with my husband's help. Lots of trigger point massaging - especially to the serratus and latissimus dorsi. He did "spray and stretch" with ice to my shoulder area while I tried to raise my arm behind my back. I couldn't even take my hand back to my hip at all two months ago. Now I can get it halfway up the back without any pain. Still a ways to go, though. I still don't have 100% extension or external rotation most of the time. Every now and then, though, things click into place and I can do it.

Active Release Therapy

I have been going to an ART chiropractor - every couple of weeks for 4 weeks. Though ART alone is probably now enough, I think everything she had done has been helpful and sped things along. Every now and then, she really makes a difference. Friday was one of those days. I had improved things so much on my own that she was able to locate new muscles that I did not know about - serratus, for example - and work on them. When I came back, I was able to move my arm better than I have since July. It's so great!

ART is another form of trigger point therapy. As she worked on my arm, I could understand what she was doing. She holds a muscle firm and makes me move my body in ways that stretch the muscle out. She does it incrementally, so the fibers are stretched a little at a time.

At this point - I've tried three kinds of trigger point therapy - "spray and stetch", ART and massage. Massage is the easiest to do - but the slowest and most painful. "Spray and stretch" is the hardest to do and do right - but it doesn't hurt at all. ART is somewhere in between. I actually would recommend doing them all. Keep working on your arm.

Today, the day after lots of ART, my shoulder is a little sore. Yesterday, though, it was moving very well. It's almost 100% now. She showed my that I was "weak" and really could lift my arm 100% without pain. I was flinching and bending unnecessarily. I have new exercises to build up strength in my back muscles. They are very weak.

Massage Techniques

Another approach to eliminating trigger points is massage. I strongly recommend buying the book at this link. At this link you will find instructions on massaging the barely accessible trigger points on the underside of the scapula. These will be very, very tender. Mine give up very quickly though and give immediate relief from some of the discomfort.

You are likely to have a whole set of trigger points all over your shoulder area. The book at the link The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook by Davies is a really excellent book. It's practical and easy to follow. Clair Davies is a joy to read. I found this book really useful. It allowed me to eliminate all of my trigger points except the ones under my scapula through massage. When I got to that point, my shoulder was much better, but still not totally healed. When the only main trigger points you have are the ones in you subscapularis muscle - under the scapula, it generates a characteristic pain in your arm. It aches at the top of your arm, down the back towards your elbow and then again around your wrist, especially on top. The top of your scapula aches as well.

If you get to this point, you are very close to better, but still far away - since these trigger points are the hardest to resolve. I am still working on these.