I was recently diagnosed with frozen shoulder and was told that it will just heal itself. Is this true? Isn’t there anything else I can do for it? I am 62 years old and otherwise healthy.

Frozen shoulder, or adhesive capsulitis is charaterized by a loss of both active and passive range of motion at the glenohumeral joint. It is classified as either (1) primary idiopathic or (2) secondary to another pathologic process, and can often be associated with diabetes or thyroid disease. Treatment with nonoperative management is highly successful and should be considered the first option. While some are told to just wait it out and it will heal on its own, conservative treatment may also include a steroid injection, physical therapy, or both. Research indicates that formal physical therapy combined with a cortisone injection for the treatment of adhesive capsulitis was significantly better than no treatment at three month follow up, but both groups were similar at one year.

Depending on how long you have had your frozen shoulder and the resources available to you in terms of physical therapy and your health insurance coverage, your doctor may have decided that it is best just to wait it out. It is certainly reasonable to discuss the possibility or a cortisone injection and/or physical therapy with your doctor in order to speed up your recovery or ease your symptoms. Aside from conservative treatment, very rarely operative treatment is an option. Operative treatment is considered with recalcitrant adhesive capsulitis or when conservative treatment fails as can be the case more often with younger patients or those with diabetes.