Acupuncture for frozen shoulder
It usually starts without an injury, and takes your range a little at a time. Acupuncture eases the pain and helps movement come back.
Frozen shoulder, adhesive capsulitis, often begins with no memory of injury. A nagging ache turns into a deep pain, and raising the arm gets harder until everyday tasks feel out of reach.
It moves through stages, and treatment works best when it's matched to the stage you're in. We ease the pain of the freezing phase and help movement return through the thawing phase.
Symptoms we treat
If any of these sound like your experience, acupuncture is worth a conversation. This isn't a diagnosis, your first visit is.
Why acupuncture works here
Three layers at once, local, segmental, and central, chosen for what your body is asking for.
From first visit to plan
Every patient gets the same unhurried four-beat rhythm, the first visit includes a consultation.
The clinical picture
Even without any memory of shoulder injury, you start to feel shoulder pain. Thinking it will pass, you ignore it, but over time, the pain intensifies. Soon, raising your arm becomes difficult, making everyday activities like washing your face, eating with a spoon, and using the bathroom challenging. When you finally visit the doctor, you’re told it’s "frozen shoulder." Commonly affecting people in their 50s, this condition involves restricted movement and pain in the shoulder joint. Inflammation (capsulitis) and adhesions form in the tissues surrounding the shoulder joint, making movement difficult and painful. Medically, this condition is known as adhesive capsulitis and is often referred to as "frozen shoulder."
Due to the unique structure of the shoulder joint, frozen shoulder causes pain that limits daily activities like styling hair, fastening belts, and raising arms (anterior elevation: flexion, posterior elevation: extension). Inability to style hair or fasten a belt is due to limitations in shoulder abduction, external rotation, adduction, and internal rotation. In conclusion, frozen shoulder is a relatively benign pain syndrome characterized by painful shoulder hypomobility.
Pathological Changes in Frozen Shoulder includes, but is not limited to, the following anatomical conditions:
- Disuse contracture from prolonged immobilization
- Supraspinatus tendon tear, calcification within the tendon, and impingement syndrome
- Bursitis
- Periosteal pain from biceps shortening at the coracoid attachment, pulled by the coracobrachialis
- Tendinitis of the long head of the biceps
- Acromioclavicular joint degeneration
Symptoms include pain and restricted motion, along with significant proximal muscle atrophy around the shoulder joint, especially in the supraspinatus and infraspinatus muscles, as well as some atrophy in the trapezius and deltoid muscles.
Treatment Approaches
For acute pain, localized stabilization, cold compresses, steroid hormone and local anesthetic injections, or anti-inflammatory painkillers are used. These treatments temporarily alleviate pain but do not address the root cause. Traditional Korean medicine treatments include acupuncture and herbal remedies. Acupuncture relaxes overly tense muscle fibers, offering fundamental relief from pain. Herbal medicine addresses the internal factors contributing to frozen shoulder, aiming for a root-cause approach to treatment. Rehabilitation and active range-of-motion exercises are also beneficial for improving mobility and reducing discomfort. Early intervention during the “freezing” stage of the disease enhances treatment effectiveness, whereas treatment during the “frozen” stage will be more difficult, focusing on pain management and gradual recovery of range of motion.
肩 shoulder
Read gyeon in Korean. Hanja are learned meaning first, then sound, so this one is 어깨 견.