How long does it take for 50 shoulder to heal?

Frozen shoulder generally refers to a disease that occurs around the age of 50. Most people experience shoulder pain or mobility problems in the shoulder joints when the disease occurs, which seriously affects their daily life and work. If you want treatment, you can choose massage or some shoulder joint rehabilitation training. If conservative treatment is not particularly effective, it is best to consult a doctor.

The official medical name for shoulder periarthritis is "chronic adhesive capsulitis", which refers to adhesion of the shoulder joint, resulting in limited angle of movement of the entire shoulder and may be accompanied by pain. Joint adhesion is divided into two parts: one is the atrophy of the joint capsule inside the shoulder joint, and the other is the tightness of the muscles and tendons outside the joint. The result of the combined effect of internal and external factors causes the shoulder joint to be able to move at a smaller and smaller angle.

The shoulder joint is the joint with the greatest range of motion in the body. The round head of the humerus presses against the groove of the scapula. It is covered by a joint capsule that secretes synovial fluid for lubrication. There are also four rotator tendons on it that drive the shoulder joint to move. The bones, muscles, and nerves work together to allow the shoulder joint to move. The nerves then control the muscles, and muscle contraction drives the bones to move. If any link goes wrong, the arm will be unable to move.

Shoulder periarthritis affects many aspects of daily life, such as dressing and undressing, bathing and wiping the body, combing and blowing hair, exercising, and reaching out to grab things, all of which become difficult due to joint adhesion. Shoulder periarthritis can also cause great trouble to sleep. In mild cases, it may just be pain when the affected shoulder is pressed when sleeping on the side. In severe cases, it may be difficult to sleep all night due to occasional dull pain.

During the consultation, the doctor will not only ask in detail whether the shoulder has been strained or bruised, but will also consider whether there are any underlying medical diseases or whether the patient has undergone related surgeries. And carry out appropriate examinations, such as electromyography, ultrasound imaging, X-rays, etc.

Different causes of pain require different treatments

If the pain is caused by inflammation of the tendon and a severe rupture, the damaged tendon may need to be sutured if necessary. In addition, deformation of the bone structure and the growth of bone spurs in the shoulder joint may also rub the tendons and cause pain. Not only surgery is required to repair the tendons, but also the bone spurs need to be trimmed.

If the adhesion of the shoulder joint is severe and the condition does not improve after three months of rehabilitation and drug treatment, you can consider active treatment - shoulder mobilization. After general anesthesia, use external force to loosen the shoulder joint and pull open the adhesion joint capsule. If the above methods still fail to improve the condition, you may consider arthroscopic surgery, where you use a scalpel to cut open the tightened joint capsule and directly remove the adhered soft tissue. After the surgery, combined with rehabilitation treatment, you can raise and swing your arms and move again after 2 to 3 months.

As for the bothersome pain, it is actually a relatively easy problem to deal with among all the links. Physical therapy combined with a short period of anti-inflammatory and analgesic drugs can effectively relieve the pain.

If the patient has compressed cervical nerve roots, bone spurs or herniated discs must also be considered during the rehabilitation process. Doctors remind that the longer frozen shoulder is delayed, or the more difficult to treat shoulder periarthritis, the more likely it is that it is related to cervical spine disease.