Frozen Shoulder accounts for only a small percentage of shoulder pain issues, and that’s a good thing considering Frozen Shoulder is not only difficult to treat, but it’s also a highly debilitating condition. Being a non-disabled person and then suddenly finding that you have a Frozen Shoulder is like waking up one day and suddenly having a full-blown disability. There is nothing quite like things going wrong with the body to help us appreciate how great life is when our bodies are working.

The primary difference between Frozen Shoulder and most other shoulder complaints is that a Frozen Shoulder tends to be much stiffer and more restricted, meaning that a Frozen Shoulder is painful and disabling. Frozen Shoulder predominantly occurs in females. The majority of Frozen Shoulders also tend to occur in people who have had elevated stress levels for some time. However, it would be a mistake to assume that stress is the only factor in generating Frozen Shoulder and of course, being a female isn’t the only factor in Frozen Shoulder either. So what causes Frozen Shoulder?

Stress-related conditions are always complex and never simple. If you have Irritable-Bowel Syndrome (IBS) triggered by stress, it is likely that you also have a genetic predisposition to IBS. It’s also likely that you have an imbalance in your gut bacteria; potentially, you may have also had a bad diet over an extended period. Just because stress triggers the IBS, it doesn’t mean that it’s the whole story. In the same way that stress combined with genetics and poor diet can cause IBS, stress combined with other factors tends to cause Frozen Shoulder. 

On a physical level, a Frozen Shoulder results from chronic loss of strength and postural integrity within the shoulder girdle. Sitting for thousands and thousands of hours, as much office work causes muscle wasting behind the Shoulder, leading to the gradual collapse of posture. Even office workers who have no stress inflict a significant amount of strain on the tissues of the Shoulder joint, including the joint capsule; juts by sitting. These weaknesses tend to go relatively unnoticed for long periods, but when combined with increased stress and a lack of or access to exercise, episodes of Frozen Shoulder are invited in.