Hello all those afflicted with Adhesive Capsulitis or Frozen Shoulder and all those who are researching it for some reason. I am not selling anything; I am giving the cure for frozen shoulder away for free (because I am too lazy to work out how to sell it.)
In this blog page I will explain how I cured mine and it should be easy enough for you to do so as well. It took me a month but I had good results in the first week. I will explain a little of my theory of how and why adhesive capsulitis is formed so you can avoid getting it again later.
In the broad strokes your shoulder has frozen as a protection mechanism. Trying to force it free will only make it worse. Do not get Manipulation Under Anaesthetic or any kind of physio. Do not get a saline injection and do not get cortisone injections or surgery. All of these “treatments” aggravate the condition and lengthen your recovery time.
I can hear medicos shouting at the screen – I will explain:
Around your shoulder you have lots of different muscles pulling together to give you a full range of movement. Movements you do often and that require effort, build up muscle mass to cope. Muscles you don’t use so much, don’t build.
When your body is in stress, either mental (anxiety, pressure, worry) or biological (lack of regular food or vitamins or other bad living conditions) your body makes a hormone to convert your tissues (muscles and organs) into fat and sugar to give you the energy to defeat the stress maker. This hormone is called cortisol. During stress, all your body loses muscle tissue and gains fat and sugar. Also, blood flow to your arms and legs is reduced, so that most of that new fat stays in your torso neck and head. If are a little fat with skinny arms and legs it could be due to some kind of long term stress.
So, here is where the frozen shoulder comes in: You live in a modern world where you do not need to physically dig up, pick or catch and kill your food. You have a regular routine and so some muscles get used every day and some very rarely at all. One muscle group that does not get used very often is the one responsible for opening your hands after a clap. It almost never gets used as a percentage of your week (even if you clap a lot). In your routine life, if you have stress it is probably every day too. So, every day you build up muscles and every day stress dissolves them a little. If you are not building some, those muscles will shrink. If they shrink too far they will get weak enough to tear. Usually this is minor and triggers your body to rebuild. However if your body is stressed it won’t rebuild, it just forms scar tissue to protect the muscle and creates pain to tell you to stop using it.
So there you have it. Chronic stress or an unhealthy environment or both has given you frozen shoulder / adhesive capsulitis.
How to fix it?
First, listen to your doctor. Don’t do anything they say, but listen to them and think about what they are telling you: There is a 20% chance that medical treatment will fix this frozen shoulder in 3 to 6 months. There is a 25% chance the frozen shoulder will get better in 3 to 6 months. The medical treatments are a worse option than luck. Because they are actually damaging and will prolong your illness, not help you.
What you need to do to cure your adhesive capsulitis is three fold:
- Find that every day stressor (boss/family/commute…etc) and find a way to greatly reduce its negative effect on you (I quit my job, but whatever works for you).
- Eat Low GI and High Fibre food (this will lower your baseline cortisol). You don’t need to cut anything out of your diet, just add fibre and add low GI to every meal, you won’t lose weight but you will lose belly fat.
- Twice a day (morning and night) do some light stretching (so you feel some tension on your muscles but not pain) and then go for a walk for at least 5 minutes.
If you do these things, FS /AC will just heal on its own. After I did these things I also took a supplement called DHEA (It promotes the opposite hormone to cortisol). The day after I started eating right and taking DHEA I had 90% movement back – my shoulder sounded like it had a bag of rocks in it, but it was moving for the first time in ten months. After a month of stretching, diet and DHEA I was 100% movement and pain free.
You may be skeptical, and you should be. But it will only take a week and $20 at the health food store to know for sure. You only have excruciating pain and sleepless nights to lose.
Take DHEA if you can, it will speed your recovery but you NEED to cut the stress and add a light diet and exercise or FS/AC will just keep coming back.
Below is a forum post of some conversations I had about this – I got banned from that forum for saying negative things about WebMD, a shill pseudo medical site built to fear monger and peddle snake oil.
I made this blog out of frustration. And because I hope to undermine them with some factual thought.
I hope this helps you; if you tried this please comment on any progress or lack of progress. If you have doubts, I can only say, read this again especially the part about listening to your doctor. This time next month you could be free of this painful restriction.
PS some spelling mistakes are included for historical accuracy, some are typos the rest is genuine lack of writing ability.
Posted about a month ago
Hi All,
I was diagnosed with frozen shoulder a few years ago and went through a few General Practitioners, a handful of sessions at the physio and when the discomfort got too much a shoulder specialist.
As many of you know, none of these helped in any way. The stretches I was given were impossible to perform and just cause a lot of pain when I tried. I made my own stretches based on reaching away from myself to and imaginary point and gained a few % range back but did not solve the problem of pain especially at night.
After some research and a bit of a logical leap I realised that the capsulitis was probably due to long term elevated cortisol levels. There isn’t much you can do apart from try to eat low g I and cut out some stressors.
So I took some DHEA – a cheap supplement you can get at the health food store and the next day I got about 90% movement back and a great reduction in pain. I kept taking DHEA and stretching, after a week I was 100% movement. It took another month before I was completely pain free.
I still take it once a week but during recovery I took 50gm in the mornings. I am average height and weight. If you took a little more than you needed you would be wasting a little money, but I would have paid anything to be free of that pain and restriction.
Hope this helps
Mike.
13 Replies
Top of Form
Sort by:
Bottom of Form
Top of Form
Bottom of Form
FrozenJen flashasarat • 16 days ago
Wow, glad that worked for you! That got rid of the scar tissue that formed around your shoulder in a month?
1 Report this reply to FrozenJen
flashasarat FrozenJen • 14 days ago
Hi Jen,
It has been about 18 months since I started taking DHEA. It seems to work better for guys. I haven’t had any imaging done since the symptoms cleared up (it was about a month on DHEA and doing reaching stretches). I still get a twinge of pain and some tightness every now and then – usually after a long stress event. I only take DHEA twice a week now, but that’s mainly for general health and fitness.
My working theory is that the Cortisol from stress weakens all your muscles until the smallest go beyond the point of functioning and then the capsulitis forms as a protection. So breaking it up with manipulation or surgery would not solve the problem. That theory is borne out by the failure rate of treatment options.
It’s key to find and deal with that stressor and try to stay healthy but the DHEA really sped up my recovery like magic.
Best of luck
Mike.
0 Report this reply to flashasarat
melissa48549 flashasarat • 15 days ago
Wow! I don’t know much about DHEA. I will have to look into it, and perhaps give it a try. Thanks so much for sharing.
0 Report this reply to melissa48549
flashasarat melissa48549 • 14 days ago
Thanks Melissa,
There doesn’t seem to be a lot around about DHEA and stress illness. It is a banned competitive substance so if you are competing professionally you can’t take it. Not an issue for most of us though.
Men over 40 seem more likely to get frozen shoulder and men over 40 start producing less DHEA, stress is a factor in all frozen shoulder cases and stress always causes Cortisol elevation.
Cortisol is a catabolic steroid and DHEA is anabolic – so stress wastes away your muscle and tissues while DHEA repairs them. Seems straight forward to me but my doctor(s GP + specialist + physio guy) had never heard of it. Not sure why it isn’t better known. Too cheap and easy maybe?
Give it whirl – I don’t think it can harm you, if this is the cure to frozen shoulder the more people to know the better. Haybe I will win a prize for the first forum post to cure adhesive capsulitis
Best of luck
Mike.
0 Report this reply to flashasarat
melissa48549 flashasarat • 14 days ago
Dear Mike,
Thank you so much!
I am 56 years old and already taking Hormone Replacement Therapy. Before starting any DHEA, I need to determine that there is no contraindication. It seems that you responded to it very quickly, and so possibly a short period of supplementing with DHEA might be all it would take for me to see substantial improvement as well. I just want to make sure that I am not inviting any additional problems into my life. The past year has been exceptionally stressful, and even the FS has been quite stressful in and of itself; so in response to your post about cortisol being a likely culprit for FS, I am looking at all kinds of ways to reduce cortisol- diet, exercise, stress adaptors, meditation, etc.
And I just may give DHEA a whirl!
Thanks Again.
Melissa
0 Report this reply to melissa48549
flashasarat melissa48549 • 13 days ago
Hey again Melissa,
Yeah it was such a quick response for me (literally the next day) after 9 or 10 months of some very bad pain and limited movement and a lot of lost sleep. It was just two weeks earlier my shoulder specialist was telling me it would be another 2 to 3 years before it healed.
I think the stretching I did also helped and the (low GI) diet and regular sleep and generally taking care of myself a little better. For sure there is a hormonal part to this and 99% it is Cortisol.
There is some misinformation around about DHEA, basically you need to read the study to see if the conclusions they drew were realistic. At 50mg daily there are no reports of negative effects for men or women in the medium term and no long term studies. If you read the report results there are negative reports but nothing that the control group didn’t get also. Frustrating there isn’t more to read up on this stuff.
If you are already doing HRT then maybe changing the mix to include HGH (it’s real expensive) or something similar (secretagogue GSH – cheaper but so new it is hard to find a vendor) might be a good conversation to have with your Dr (Endo). All the research I did was pretty guy centric I’m afraid.
Looks like you are on the road to discovery at any rate.
Best of luck
Mike.
0 Report this reply to flashasarat
melissa48549 flashasarat • 12 days ago
Mike,
I will certainly look into the possibility of DHEA, and am so grateful to have come across your shared experience. Hopefully, I will have my concerns about possible contraindications alleviated, and then be free to attempt for myself the successful treatment you have enjoyed. Luckily, I have received some help from needling and from daily castor oil applications, but I do still have a long way to go; a major overnight improvement would be fantastic.
Thanks again,
Melissa
0 Report this reply to melissa48549
maria58274 flashasarat • 9 days ago
I’m always interested to see theories and possible treatments for this awful condition. I’ve never heard of DHEA, so looked it up. While some are making great claims for it – please look up possible side effects and weigh this up the risks before trying it for yourself. From a personal perspective, these sound too worrying for me to risk taking it.
0 Report this reply to maria58274
flashasarat maria58274 • 8 days ago
Hey Maria,
Thanks for your reply. I can certainly see where you are coming from; I had similar concerns and did not try it for quite a while. Before you make up your mind completely I think, in fairness, you should consider the following:
As I said there is a lot of misinformation around about DHEA, which is why like you, people are hesitant to try it even though it could really help.
Firstly, it is an over the counter supplement in most western countries -(EDIT I meant to say for most people – it is restricted in some western countries to a doctors script)- Not considered to be dangerous enough even to need a script.
Secondly, it is a banned substance in athletics because it will repair damaged tissue faster than not using it.
Thirdly, it is a substance that occurs naturally in the human body anyway.
My experience with GPs is that they look for a script to give you before anything else, and they get constantly bombarded with pharma reps pushing new drugs. Old stuff like DHEA is not hot or new or patentable so is not pushed. Out of sight out of mind, simple as that.
My experience with physio is that they really do not understand what they are dealing with. Early on they certainly do more harm than good.
I can’t remember who said it but someone on this forum wiser than I wrote – “…listen to your body”. You need to trust yourself, but also keep an open mind. What is clear is that the cause, treatment, recovery and cure are all unknown at this point. That is to say EVERYTHING doctors try has a very high failure rate. If you are looking for someone to say – this is the cure, and this is the evidence – well no one is there yet. DHEA worked for me. It may not work for you, but the risk of it harming you is minuscule. There is scientific evidence that it will help you heel. There is no scientific evidence that it is dangerous at 50gm/day.
You might feel like you are trading one problem for another. When I had this problem I would have traded just about anything to get rid of it. But at the same time I also felt like I could not take one more problem. I felt like I was going crazy.
Now I am looking for a brave sole to give this a try – one person one time is not enough to say yes or no, but if others try it everyone will know, is it really able to help or was my case a total fluke?
I don’t want to pressure you, I just feel like if this is the answer, it’s time everyone knew it. I felt so abandoned when the shoulder specialist said – well, good luck over the next 2 to 3 years and ah… sucks to be you. (Paraphrase). When I knew of people who have had this for over 5 years in both arms.
Sorry I got off topic. Maria, you have to do what you feel is best for you. But I don’t think a week on a dietary supplement is such a big risk for anyone. Whatever you decide, keep posting when you have new things to add, the more we share the better for everyone.
Whatever you decide, know that alll the people on the forum are with you and want the best for you.
Warm Regards,
Mike.
0 Report this reply to flashasarat
maria58274 flashasarat • 4 days ago
Hi Mike
I’m glad that DHEA appears to have worked for you and maybe some controlled trials might be useful. Unfortunately there seem to be few substantial trials of DHEA that prove (or disprove) it’s safety and effectiveness for it’s claims. What worries me is that self medication is totally uncontrolled – you may feel fine but not be aware of something that’s going on inside or interactions with other drugs or conditions – e.g. it apparently should not be taken by diabetics and may reduce “good” cholesterol. I can understand people wanting to try anything to get rid of this awful condition and would simply ask anyone considering this to do some research beforehand, so they know what they are dealing with.
It isn’t actually legal in the UK over the counter – from Boots WebMD:
“DHEA supplements, along with other anabolic steroids, are considered a class C drug under the Misuse of Drugs Act in the UK. This means they are a prescription-only medicine, and a pharmacist can provide you with DHEA only in a medical form if your GP gives you a prescription. It is also an ‘unlicensed’ medicine, so it is up to your doctor and pharmacy to be willing to supply you with the medicine, which might sometimes be considered if a licensed medicine is not suitable and it is in your best interest.
Although it is not an offence to be in possession of an anabolic steroid for personal use if it is in a medical form – and has not been counterfeited – it is an offence to supply them without a prescription.”
0 Report this reply to maria58274
flashasarat maria58274 • 4 days ago
From WEBMD
“What Is DHEA?
DHEA (dehydroepiandrosterone) is a hormone produced by your body’s adrenal glands. These are glands just above your kidneys.
DHEA supplements can be made from wild yam or soy.
Scientists don’t know everything DHEA does. But they do know that it functions as a precursor to male and female sex hormones, including testosterone and estrogen. Precursors are substances that are converted by the body into a hormone.
DHEA production peaks in your mid-20s. In most people, production gradually declines with age.”
WebMD is a site written by internet journalists in order to sell advertising. They are not medical professionals and write sensationalist hype to hook readers. They are self-contradictory and the sources they site do not back their alarmist claims.
DHEA has been marketed to do miraculous and unbelievable things by the deluded and unscrupulous that is for sure. All it really does is restore production of Testosterone and Oestrogen. This is where the dire warnings come from I think. It wasn’t too long ago that HRT was erroneously linked to cancer. The Link to Oestrogen meant that DHEA was tarred with the same brush it would seem; only without the backing of any large pharmaceutical companies to re market it after the BS smoke cleared.
I read the same WebMD article about two years ago – although for some reason it says it was updated this year. WebMD was what stopped me from trying DHEA the first time, I regret falling for it. If you look at the 2nd result in the google search you will see Wikipedia DHEA.
As Wikipedia is written and edited by multiple specialists (not just a single unqualified journalist but anyone researching the field can add or edit or correct others shortcomings) and re read by specialists in the field multiple times daily, and not written to sell advertising, it is more balanced and a lot more trustworthy. While Wikipedia is not infallible, it puts to the lie the claims of the “Possible” side effects and actually sites the studies.
In the UK, Australia (where I live) and Canada DHEA need a doctor’s script as it is a pro steroid / hormone precursor.
In the US and the rest of the world it is just a supplement made from soy.
It is a hormone precursor, and like other HRT should be monitored by a doctor. Unlike other HRT is is self limiting as the actual hormone needs to be made by your body.
Currently what you can see on the forums is that if you go without treatment it will be months of painful recovery, or if you choose one of the treatments doctors offer it will be months of painful recovery. What the doctors are offering is not working. Simple as that. Not working, not helping and very likely doing more harm than good in many cases.
So if you live somewhere DHEA is not demonised, you can take it and maybe recover faster. If you live in Australia the UK or Canada, you can ask your doctor. As I said, I got blank stares from my Doctor / Physio / Shoulder Specialist, as their understanding is FS/AC is a mystery without cause, treatment, or cure and always will be. Stonewall.
Steroids (hormones) are prescribed to speed recovery for athletes and important people. They are generally bad for you taken long term. Frozen shoulder is damage, most likely degenerative damage from a catabolic hormone. It does not have “no cause” or “mysterious cause” or magical causes. It has an identifiable cause. FS / AC is difficult to study, and so it is not studied. That is not the same as unfathomable.
There is another post here that states HRT helped with FS and others that claim Caster Oil helps too. Caster oil is effective as an anti-inflammatory because the Ricinoleic acid in it is a kind of pro steroid / hormone.
All the signs point to a hormonal issue driving FS /AC. Without resolving the primary issue, you won’t get clear of this illness. It is my personal belief that unrelenting stress is the mystery cause. A mystery as most doctors don’t believe stress is a real thing.
I have seen a cancer study where the DHEA dose was 400mg/day. This is 8X the therapeutic dose. And this study had no major side effects in the short term. As you said, if there were some studies to look at we would know for sure. But you don’t need to wear a lab coat and hold a clip board. If you take DHEA for FS and you note down what happens – that is a study. If a lot of people do it, personal bias is addressed. Score one for people power.
When I had FS I resigned myself to die a horrible death at the hands of DHEA, with my hair falling out and skin falling off and uncontrollable rage… incredible hulk / toxic avenger style. Then, after I took it, the only thing that happened was I recovered.
It is true, inside terrible things could be happening. But for me it has been 19 months of quite good health and no FS since. It is also true that it may work differently for women, that is likely. Is there a better alternative? Be honest.
If you can get your doctor on board with a very short course of DHEA (I think a month@ 50mg each morning, but I’m not a doctor) then you can and you should. If not, it is a moot point if you live in one of the three countries that restrict it to a prescription.
I know WebMD looks official and sites other official looking web pages, but that is all they are, web pages. If I still had FS, I would be asking my doctor why I can’t get anabolics? And why if cortisone is effective, why isn’t the thing that it blocks – cortisol, a suspect in the cause?
But I don’t have FS anymore.
Warm Regards,
Mike.
0 Report this reply to flashasarat
maria58274 flashasarat • 4 days ago
Hi Mike
I’m not telling people not to try it, if they think it might help – just to do your own research and know what they are dealing with – then you will be pepared and know what to look for if it does have any side effects for you. I chose the quote from that site, simply because it explains the legal position in the UK – I looked at quite a few sites for information regarding DHEA.
Glad it worked for you – maybe it will for others too – but we must all make our own (hopefully informed) decision as to what we are wiling to try, as I did with other treatments like MUA, which I wouldn’t personally consider. It would be better if you could get it through the GP, as at least then you would be checked out and monitored and any potential side-effects and contra-indications discussed. I wouldn’t hold much hope of getting my GP to agree, if I wanted to try it though! It is readily available mail-order from the web but (as with anything) you need to be sure that you are buying from a reputable source and you are getting what you expect.
All the best and good luck to anyone else who decides to try this out.
Maria
0 Report this reply to maria58274
flashasarat maria58274 • 4 days ago
Thanks for your efforts Maria,
Whatever happens talking to your doctor about possibilities is never a bad thing. Your concerns are well founded, both in quality of what you might get ordering through the mail, legal issues and the big unknown; interactions.
You can see why my advice wasn’t “talk to you doctor” right off the bat though, can’t you? While the answer seems clear to me now, it’s just me and my experience and knowledge.
I wrestled with all those concerns for quite a while and luckily have access to University libraries as well as online stuff. Still it was truly a leap of faith for me as I did not know what would happen.
I started doctor shopping when I had FS and was very surprised to see the variety of attitudes and knowledge. I guess it shouldn’t be that surprising, but it is hard to think of doctors as people, who are doctors. The upshot being I met a really great GP and have been with them ever since.
I think the DHEA risk for guys is probably lower, although that is just a feeling I can’t attribute to any evidence. There seems to be more women than men on this site – although I guess a lot of guys are lurking, reading and not posting. Stoic and silent is a guy way to handle most problems.
Something I meant to add – I used to be a science teacher and since FS have had bloodwork done every four months. Personally all my numbers took a sharp improve on DHEA including “good” cholesterol.
There are certainly a lot of BS and scammers around. It is super important to ask questions. Especially if something seems too good to be true. That said, problems have causes, and addressing a cause is a solution.
If anyone is reading this and thinking of getting DHEA online, it is a risk. Really your first port of call is your doctor and if they say no, ask why. It is hard to challenge a doctor like that, but it is worth it just to learn about their thinking process and experiences. I feel that US suppliers are probably more likely to be reputable since it is legal and over the counter there… sad that you would need to go to those lengths though.
As for MUA I was thinking about it. But it was pretty obvious the shoulder was stuck for a reason.
All the best,
Mike.
Site Title 