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Shoulder

Frozen shoulder

A shoulder that has gradually stopped moving — not just painful, but genuinely stuck, in every direction.

What it typically feels like

  • Pain that came on gradually, with no obvious injury
  • Progressive loss of movement in every direction
  • Unable to reach behind your back or overhead
  • Severe pain at night, especially lying on that side

Frozen shoulder is different from most shoulder problems, and it is worth knowing which you have, because the timeline and the treatment differ.

The distinguishing feature is that the restriction is in every direction, including when someone else moves your arm for you. Most shoulder pain limits one or two movements. Frozen shoulder limits all of them.

The three phases

  1. Freezing — increasingly painful, movement starting to reduce. Often the worst phase for pain, and it can last months.
  2. Frozen — pain often eases, but the shoulder is genuinely stiff and movement is very limited.
  3. Thawing — movement returns gradually.

It typically resolves eventually, but the whole cycle can run one to three years. That is not a comfortable thing to be told, and it is why an honest answer matters more than an optimistic one.

What treatment can and cannot do

Soft tissue therapy will not shorten the natural course of the condition, and anyone claiming otherwise is overselling.

What it can do is meaningful: reduce the secondary problems. When a shoulder stops moving, the neck, upper back and opposite side compensate and develop their own pain. Keeping those settled, maintaining the movement you do have, and managing pain makes a long process considerably more bearable.

Get this one diagnosed properly — by your GP or a physiotherapist — because it is frequently confused with rotator cuff problems, which are treated completely differently.

What is actually in the shoulder

The most mobile joint in the body, and mobile for a specific reason: the socket is shallow, roughly the size of a golf tee holding a golf ball. Almost all of its stability is muscular, which is why the muscles matter so much here.

Glenohumeral joint
The ball and socket itself. A large humeral head sitting on a small, shallow glenoid — enormous range, very little bony stability.
Rotator cuff
Four muscles — supraspinatus, infraspinatus, teres minor and subscapularis — whose job is to hold the ball centred in the socket while the big movers do the lifting. Supraspinatus is the one most often irritated.
Subacromial space
The narrow gap between the top of the arm bone and the bony roof above it, with a tendon and a bursa running through it. Reduce that space and the contents get compressed — the pinch felt midway through lifting the arm.
Scapulothoracic movement
The shoulder blade must glide and rotate on the rib cage for the arm to get overhead. If it does not, the joint runs out of room early and the cuff takes the impact.
Acromioclavicular joint
The small joint on top of the shoulder where the collarbone meets the shoulder blade. Distinctive because pain sits precisely on the point of the shoulder rather than deep inside it.

Why it goes wrong

The painful-arc pattern — comfortable at the bottom, sore in the middle, easier again at the top — is the signature of something being compressed in that narrow subacromial space. Most of the time the underlying cause is not the tendon itself but the shoulder blade failing to move properly beneath it, which is why treatment that only chases the sore spot tends to disappoint.

3D anatomy See the structures involved on the interactive model

The honest next step

This page describes what is common, not what you have. The only way to know is to have it assessed — and your first session includes a full assessment, so you leave knowing what is actually going on.

Book an assessment Call 07922 884 788