Frozen shoulder massage therapy TorontoFrozen Shoulder

Inflammation and thickening of the shoulder joint capsule. The cause isn't fully understood; it's more common with diabetes and thyroid conditions, and most common between ages 40 and 60.

Not a diagnosis — for more information, contact me or another trusted healthcare provider.

Frozen shoulder moves through three stages, over roughly 1–3 years total. In the freezing stage, the shoulder gradually gets more painful and starts losing range of motion — often the first thing to go is rotating the arm outward, like reaching to put on a seatbelt or reaching into a back pocket. In the frozen stage, the pain may actually ease off, but the stiffness is at its worst — lifting the arm out to the side and rotating it inward (reaching behind your back) both become genuinely difficult, sometimes to the point where dressing or reaching a shelf feels out of reach. In the thawing stage, motion slowly returns, usually in something close to the order it was lost.

Frozen shoulder is not a nice thing to have, but massage therapy can make movement easier — I help with the muscular discomfort around it. It's worth talking to your GP about cortisone injections and hydrodilatation (also called hydrodistension) — injecting saline into the joint to stretch the tight capsule. It's a long road, but we can help you along it.