Have you ever developed a painful and restricted shoulder?

@rx4life (1930)
United States
February 10, 2007 12:09am CST
I am interested knowing if it is common for people to just begin experiencing stiffness and pain in their shoulders without an apparent trauma or "event". I had this happen 4 years ago and as the weeks passed it became less and less possible to raise my arm in any direction...I sought medical help and was told I must have injured it...after the usual process of "insurance authorization" I was able to have physical therapy. Although it was a slow progress in the beginning I saw major improvements over the next weeks and was finally free of both the pain and the restriction in movement. I recovered 99.9% of my range of motion. Needless to say I was delighted...Fast forward to December 2006 and the opposite shoulder begins a similar bout of small sharp pains when my arm was in certain positions...I tried to ignore it but began doing some of the exercises I had learned during the first episode...it seemed to help at first and then 2 weeks ago I woke up to an arm that was extremely "frozen" and very painful...since then I have sought medical treatment again and now have a referral for more physical therapy to begin in the next week...This time they also were convinced that I must have injured it and just didn't realize it.. I have done some research and found that other women in my family have had similar experiences with their shoulders...my question to all of you intelligent and informational mylotians is this....Have you ever heard of this? Have you ever experienced anything like it? If you have did it stem from a direct injury that you were well aware of? The medical community wants to convince me that injury always preceeds this condition...I am well aware of my body and am wondering if it could be some sort of inflamation on it's own...and here I am...asking you..can you help me?
2 responses
@howard96h (11640)
• New York, New York
14 Feb 07
My brother has all the same complaints that you have and he is in so much pain. He went to a "sports physician" (I think the correct term is Sports Medicine) and they took an MRI and found out that in his shoulder he has "spurs" this is what's causing the pain. Bone rubbing against bone. He can only raise his arm a little bit then he screams in pain. He should be going for the surgery in a few weeks.
1 person likes this
@rx4life (1930)
• United States
14 Feb 07
I am so afraid they will say I need surgery..but tonight it started in my good shoulder...I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow..so will see what's going on..it, too it sooooo painful...tonight when I came home from work I could barely get my key in the door...it is definitely getting worse...and my range of motion is even more limited...while filling prescriptions at work today it hurt so much while mixing medicine..I worry how long I would have to be off work if I had to have surgery...but with both shoulders involved now..I wonder if it's my autoimmune disease kicking up again...( my body fighting itself and causing inflamation...)
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@howard96h (11640)
• New York, New York
14 Feb 07
You should have an MRI of your shoulders. See if it's possible to get an OPEN mri machine. Many people can not tolerate going into the closed machine. My brother tried and almost broke his way out of there.
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@rx4life (1930)
• United States
14 Feb 07
I am heading to the doctor in the morning..I believe that an MRI will be on the agenda!! I, too, will use the open one..I tried the other one before and it was terrible..
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@sunita64 (6469)
• India
11 Feb 07
Few days back I had stiff shoulders,both the hands I was not able to raise above my shoulders without pain, the reason I found out was that I was directly sleeping under the fan and one day I had not covered properly which led to this pain. I did some yoga exercises for hands and shoulders as told by our Yoga guru Baba Ramdev, I became fit and now there is no pain.
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@rx4life (1930)
• United States
12 Feb 07
I plan to start back up in my yoga class..it will be the best!!!