Frozen shoulder, can I still run or will it make it worse?

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Nov 2013
9:13am, 9 Nov 2013
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Velociraptor
With a proper frozen shoulder, the symptoms last for 1-2 years no matter what you do and whatever treatment you're having at the point when it gets better spontaneously gets the credit for curing it.

The most important thing to remember is that it WILL resolve no matter what you do :)

It's worth having a cortisone injection - some folk find it helps a lot although the statistics aren't that compelling (and incidentally, having the cortisone injected into a thigh muscle has been shown to be as effective as having it injected into the shoulder but I've yet to come across a doctor who has been brave enough to put this research into practice). If you get some pain relief from taking pills, that's fine. Everything else comes into the category of "probably harmless".

None of this applies when there's a structural problem that's best treated with surgery.
Nov 2013
4:52pm, 9 Nov 2013
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Revbarbarag
Sounds as though I haven't got a properly frozen shoulder, then. Which is good, I presume. It sounded like it might be difficult to get my hands behind my back to do up my sports bra if I did.... which would be disastrous, since DH usually sleeps through me getting out of bed to go for my run and hence is not available to do it up for me.
Nov 2013
8:47pm, 19 Nov 2013
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Puffing Bertie
Ok cortisone injection done, that was ok, even though I was cr@pping myself about it. However now the local anesthetic has worn off, wow its sore, but I sort of was expecting that, but not so soon. Hope it goes away quickly.

Apparently I have bursitis and impingement.

But going back to my original question, i have been running 5 days a week and its been fine. Yay :-)
Nov 2013
8:55pm, 19 Nov 2013
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ChrisHB
In that case I have to say that what I had wasn't a frozen shoulder, though it lasted months in my memory, probably weeks in fact, and had started by sleeping against a freezing window.
Nov 2013
8:58pm, 19 Nov 2013
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Puffing Bertie
Chris, apparently this will lead to a frozen shoulder if not treated, however i cant move my arm more than 45 deg upwards anyway so I think Im on my way there :-(
Lets hope this stuff works :-)
Nov 2013
9:21pm, 19 Nov 2013
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LorraineS
I'm another like Trin who has had two frozen shoulders .. but in my case there has been ten years in between.

I wasn't a runner the first time so can really only comment this second time

I agree with everyone that's saying keep exercising - I personally found that there was a two month period during which I had a lot of pain and very little movement when I didn't want to run at all, I did manage to keep going to Sh'bam and zumba classes as I found that a variety of movement was OK even though repetitive movement wasn't

Other than that two month period I've been able to road run, but couldn't trail run as I couldn't use my arm for balance .. and even now (18 months) when I'm back to 90-95% movement I'm not totally confident off road
Nov 2013
9:40pm, 19 Nov 2013
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purephase
I had a frozen shoulder three years ago and waited to get any treatment, by the time I did go to a very good osteopath the lateral arm movement I had was less than 6 inches away from the side of my hip and my front arm movement had become less than 90 degrees. My first treatment was over 4 months after I first started to get noticeable pain in my shoulder and it gave me a significant amount of relief although it did take a total of 6 months treatment to heal the shoulder. During this time I still continued to run, although the month before my first treatment when i was seeing noticeable reductions in my movement week after week was difficult and I was running with my arm more or less stuck to my side and bet at 90 degrees while I ran. During my osteopathy treatment I trained for a marathon and it was about one month before the marathon that my shoulder finally got better. My advice from experience would be to see a good osteopath, the pain during the manipulation is one of the hardest things i have ever been through but the relief is incredible and continue running to a level you feel comfortable with.
Nov 2013
11:52am, 20 Nov 2013
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Plodder54
I`ve also had a frozen shoulder in the last ten years, but being a bloke and doing the usual bloke thing concerning doctors left it too long before the pain drove me to the GP`s, who then sent me for weeks of physio which in all truth really did nothing. The last resort as Velociraptor states was a cortisone injection which eventually did cure it. But saying that the problem was my left shoulder, and even after ten years its not as strong as my right one and even now depending on what I`m doing I still get the odd twinge in it now and again. The best advice I can give if the problem is in the early stages get to the doctors ASAP because if you leave it too long (as I did) the pain in the later stages especially if you have any manipulation on it is the worst thing I`ve ever experienced
Feb 2021
10:23am, 12 Feb 2021
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Diogenes
Being a new sufferer of a frozen shoulder, I've been reading all the threads about it, and I have to say that Mac's comment on the previous page is my favourite so far :-)

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I have a frozen shoulder and i want to know if running will make it worse. It hurts all the time so ...

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