Frozen Shoulder Syndrome Can Be Caused by the Way You Sleep

Having suffered from this condition myself, I can tell you firsthand how suddenly Frozen Shoulder can strike and how miserable it makes you feel. All you know is, you cannot lift your arm above your shoulder, and there is no comfortable position in which to lie down.

It took me some time before I finally tried to look up what was wrong with me. I found a Chinese medicine webpage that said it was often called Fifty Year Shoulder, because that was the age at which the condition usually struck. It recommended warming herbs in foods to improve circulation, and use of a heating pad.

OK, the heating pad helped somewhat, tho I cannot say the cinnamon et al helped any.
Finally I wound up at a massage therapist who was pretty good with trigger points. He began by releasing some trigger points or adhesions in the supraspinatus and infraspinatus. Those are two of the rotator cuff muscles, and they are located on the dorsal side of the shoulder blade. They help you lift the arm and roll the arm forward.

Rotator cuffs are not built to do heavy lifting; that is the job for the biceps and triceps and pecs. Rotator cuffs are meant to stabilize the shoulder joint. They help keep the shoulder down while the other muscles lift the elbow up with its payload.

So anyway, this was an improvement. Another session worked on stretching the tight pec muscles. That hurt, but I was so much better within the week. The therapist lifted my arm up and back as I lay on the massage table, and manually stretched the pec muscle by pushing away from the arm. Then she lay the arm across my chest and gently pushed toward the opposite shoulder.

You can pull your arm across your own chest, and hook the other arm around it to help press it towards your chest. Hold for a couple breaths, and allow the arm and shoulder to relax into it.
After three weeks of the onset of frozen shoulder, you can proceed with Post-Isometric Release techniques.

Stand or lie on your back, whichever you prefer. Raise the arm above you as far as your current range of motion allows. Push in the OPPOSITE direction; HOLD for 5 seconds and release. You should be able to move your arm a bit further than before. You may repeat the exercise at the new limit of your range of motion.

Repeat this series for every angle of movement for your arm. Up, to the side, across the chest, forward, back. Make circles with your arms, slowly, with your arms straight out at the side. Make the circles bigger.

Stand in a corner. Put your forearms on either wall, hands pointing up. Lean into the corner. You may feel a stretch in the pecs and in the upper back.

Lastly, hold your arms out to the side. Roll the shoulder forward so that your hands turn palm up. Rotate the arms back again. Roll both shoulders forward and back for a minute or two, then roll one shoulder forward while rolling the other one back. This helps correct the hunched shoulders that so many of us get from working at a computer all day.

Now, ask yourself how you lie in bed at night. Do you lie on your side, and do you let the shoulder flop forward? Ask yourself what you are training your muscles to do by your habitual ways of sitting, standing and lying.

Lying with the shoulders flopped forward is straining your supraspinatus and infraspinatus muscles because they are being stretched for too many hours. It also is training your pec muscles to shorten up in front. Eventually your shoulder will cry out, I can't do this anymore and cramp up into the Frozen Shoulder syndrome.

Lying in this position will also tend to hunch the back. And you are probably much too young to have a Dowager's Hump on your back.

So please, try to train yourself to lie on your back when you sleep.
Sweet dreams :) Laura