Frozen Shoulder?

So I was recently diagnosed with a frozen shoulder. The doctor said it mainly occurs in Diabetics and Stroke Victims. He said there are 3 stages to it. The frozen stage, when you loose mobility in the shoulder, then the thaw out stage, where there is pain and limited mobility, and then the healing stage. He said it could last up to 3 years and there is nothing to do for it.

Have any of you had this? I have found that going to a masseuse 2 times a week is reducing the pain and helping gain back mobility in my shoulder.

Out of curiosity, do you take simvastatin to lower high cholesterol and triglyceride levels?

This subject was explored well in this recent thread.

There are other threads on this topic that you can find by clicking on the magnifying glass search option.

I did, but I was out of town away from pharmacies for 9 months and was not able to stay on it. Is that a good or bad thing?

I had previously stumbled across a post (not here) from someone who thought his shoulder/muscle pain was related to the Simvastatin. But the fact that you haven’t been using Simvastatin but still have the problem is anecdotal evidence that there is nothing to this.

Still … I’m human, so I’m very susceptible to superstitious learning. :blush:

For about 2 1/2 or 3 years now … I’m not really sure when it started … I have had pain in my left upper arm and possibly should joint whenever I moved that arm the “wrong way”. At this moment I still get pain if I hold that arm straight up like I’m asking a question. But it has been much worse previously.

For example, I could not seem to find a good way to lay down in bed which didn’t eventually result in pain in that arm. So my nights involved a lot of tossing & turning. The longer I stayed in bed the worse the pain became. Getting up and moving around seemed to “loosen” things up in the sense that the pain became less intense and I had more freedom of movement. But it didn’t get rid of it.

Pretty much since this started I have been trying to bring it up during my visits to the VA. No one has ever talked to me about “frozen shoulder”. I get the impression everyone I talked to was as clueless about what was going on as I was. The only investigation of this I ever got was some x-rays were taken about a year (?) ago. I was told the x-rays did not indicate any problem with that shoulder.

What concerns me is that I am not sure whatever is causing this condition is limited to my left upper arm & shoulder. I have had intermittent back muscle pain which also seems to happen without a cause I can point to. But if I could get myself to move and even gently stretch that area, it usually got a little better for a while.

Recently I suddenly had an unexpected pain in my inner right knee area. If I was sitting for a while and then got up, I could not put weight on that leg. However, if moved around for a while I was able to gradually put more and more weight on the leg.

Thankfully, the knee seems back to normal for now.

Based on that random post I stopped taking Simvastatin about 6 weeks ago. My problem did not immediately stop nor did it immediately improve. But my range of motion has definitely increased. For one thing, I can move around in bed now. It used to be that I had to be extremely careful where I put my left arm or how I used it. Now I’m pretty much back to what I remember as “normal”.

So, bottom line is I’ve got no real explanations or understanding. Maybe stopping the Simvastatin helped or, just as likely if not more so, it’s just a coincidence. I could just be entering that thaw out stage you talked about.

Beats the heck out of me. I just wish whatever the hell this is was better understood and there was more general awareness of it. :disappointed:

I had bursitis before diagnosis/dka- I had an injection and 4 months of pt- it was very painful. Now my other shoulder is having problems… I’m sure it’s all related to the D as well as fybromyalgia and pain from injuries. So far I had some pt last year and I do my own treatments, mostly heat/tens/meds but I definitely need to keep an eye on it so my mobility in that shoulder doesn’t get worse. As I recall my mri showed tendinosis and maybe some fluid or something going on with the tendons- I don’t remember if I had one for the other shoulder but that was more dramatic as I could barely lift my arm and it came on suddenly- the steroid shot was equally dramatic- I was able to lift it nearly completely within 2-3 minutes.

You will need an MRI for the doctor to see Frozen Shoulder. It took me about a year and a half to get over it on each side.