Question:
Two Dr's have told me my frozen shoulder is a result

of the surgery. Has anyone else had this? I have been going to PT for four months, I am 6 months post op. It is slowly getting better but who could believe it could be so painful?    — kathleen S. (posted on May 8, 2002)

May 8, 2002
I am not a doctor...but I am a Physical Therapist Assistant...and I find it a little hard to believe that your frozen shoulder would be due to the surgery. Generally, a frozen shoulder is the result of an inflammatory process that causes pain, resulting in your not moving the shoulder.thus losing range of motion. It becomes a bit of a catch 22 because in trying to move the shoulder, you get pain, then limit the movement so not to have the pain...and the tighter the joint becomes. 4 months of PT is a long time...has a manipulation ever been suggested by your orthopedist?
   — MaryBeth R.

May 8, 2002
I've had 7 months of PT and surgery for my shoulder. I know the pain you must feel. But mine was NOT as a result of surgery but of a fall. I highly doubt it was the surgery that did it to you. But that is only a guess on my part. ;)Hope we both get pain free and full use back.
   — Danmark

May 8, 2002
I had frozen shoulder before I even had surgery... It was due to working on non-ergomonic equiptment at work and repetitive motion... Losing weight actually aided in my recovery... I wish you well... PS.. Some people that are unaware can blame the surgery on a cold... I've met them too :-)
   — California J.

May 8, 2002
Hi, I agree with the post above, I am a certified athletic trainer. I typically deal with athletes and orthopedic injuries. I currently work for a hospital and large sports medicine clinic, I deal with patients who have frozen shoulders everyday. I don't really think it is a result of the surgery. But as listed by another poster it is a catch-22. How long did it take you to get up and moving around after surgery? If it took you weeks to get moving then maybe it is from the surgery. I do know that diabetic patients that have surgery on the heart tend to be more prone to frozen shoulder. Are you diabetic? Frozen shoulders can take some time to heal and as mentioned before a manipulation is sometimes needed to help you regain full range of motion. If you would like to e-mail me feel free. I can ask around more at work tomorrow, the surgeons I work with deal with frozen shoulders and are all aware of me being a post-op RYN. hope this helps some.
   — karen Z.

May 8, 2002
Yes! I too have had Frozen Shoulder----and my Orthopedic speicalist, (who works with several big sports teams and knows a lot about shoulders), said that it can be from the recovery after surgery! In fact the day he saw me for the first time, he mentioned he saw 3 other patients who had the same surgery from the same WLS surgeon all within a month---and joked that he needed to give our WLS surgeon a call! During our recovery period, it is very easy to injure a joint or area where there is connective tissue----and don't forget that as we loose lots of weight at this time, these areas can be more suseptible to injury. What I did during the recovery period while taking lots of meds for surgery pain was to injure my shoulder while trying to get up. Over the next few months I continued to adjust my activties so that I wouldn't use it if I felt any discomfort. It wasn't till I was back into working out at the gym and able to see that my shoulder was becomming weaker that I questioned what had happened and mentioned it to my PCP. We did two weeks of ice/heat & liquid ibuprpen then one month of physical theraphy---which really just made things worse. When I went to the orthopedic specialist, he gave me the worst shot in the joint, Vioxx for 3 weeks and told me not to work out or do anything except for simple streching exercises as he said. It worked! I gained the motion back, could sleep, and have felt wonderful! I got the o.k. to resume all activites last week and life has been wonderful---I need to take the Vioxx a bit longer, still do my streching, but everything is working towards getting much better. See your PCP and insist on a referral to an orthopedic specialist---they really do know how to make the pain go away, and life is so much better without the pain! Gentle hugs---I know how much pain you feel!
   — Sue F.