Frozen Shoulder Recovery Journey: Steps to Regain Mobility
As I mentioned in the first part of this series, I’ve had frozen shoulder twice—and for TOTALLY OPPOSITE reasons. My left shoulder locked up from overdoing it in the gym—nine grueling sessions a week with Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, heavy weights, and calisthenics. My right shoulder? It froze because I stopped working out altogether to recover from the first one. Both shoulders froze back-to-back, literally overlapping, and let me tell you—it sucked.
Finding someone who knew what they were doing wasn’t easy either. I tried everything—therapies, exercises, and my own “research” (I use that term loosely since I’m no doctor). It wasn’t until I worked with Dr. Michael Wexel and Pascal Séguin that things really started to improve. In this post, I’ll break down the stages of my frozen shoulder recovery journey, share what worked (and what didn’t), and hopefully leave you with some practical strategies to help you recover or prevent it in the first place.
Why Recovery Is Synonymous With Patience & Consistency
Understanding the Frozen Shoulder Recovery Journey Timeline
The Frozen Shoulder Timeline
The frozen shoulder recovery journey can drag on anywhere from 12 to 42 months (1 to 3.5 years), depending on your body and the treatment plan.
For me, though, it stretched over 4 years—partly because I was slow to find the right help. Trust me, not having a clear direction or knowing what’s happening to your shoulder makes things even harder.
The 3 Phases of Frozen Shoulder
Freezing
Lasts roughly 6 to 9 months
During this phase, stiffness sets in, and your range of movement starts shrinking for no reason. I know it was utterly frustrating for me.
Frozen
The overall pain in the shoulder will suddenly stop. However, your range of motion may still cause pain as your arms can no longer move as much as they used to. You will need to get well acquainted with the pain, as it plays an important part in the rehab process.
Thawing
Finally, after what seems like forever, comes the thawing phase—lasting anywhere from 6 to 24 months. At this point, movement starts coming back slowly. The real work of rehab begins, and while every bit of mobility gained feels like a win, it’s still a long road. I’ve known others who took three years or more to get back to normal, and I’ll be honest: consistency in physio is everything. For some people, though, even that isn’t enough, and surgery becomes the last resort.
Why Recovery Requires Patience and Consistency
Frozen shoulder’s lengthy timeline can feel discouraging, from the initial pain onset through the thawing phase and potential rehab. With healing unfolding slowly—sometimes agonizingly—over months or even years, patience is as essential as the exercises themselves. Many people give up early, frustrated by the pace. However, pushing through each milestone—no matter how small—pays off. Every small stretch, every guided movement brings you closer to regaining control. Staying consistent, even when progress seems slow, is essential for a full recovery.
Top Strategies to Regain Shoulder Mobility
Physiotherapy, Chiropractic, and Active Rehabilitation
As I mentioned, the turning point in my frozen shoulder recovery journey was discovering Dr. Michael Wexel and Pascal Séguin. My progress actively started to improve once I began seeing Dr. Wexel. Truth be told, before I had seen him, I had a slightly negative view of chiropractic practitioners because I was unfortunately unaware of what they do. He taught me how to push into the zones of limited range, expanding my reach while dealing with shoulder tension. He also introduced me to practical tips like heat and cold therapy.
Heat Therapy to help expand my range of motion. I would shower using what I thought was hot water, or what my wife thought was water boiled on the surface of the sun. I suggest just using water you think is as hot as you can handle, and sitting there for as long as possible. After letting the water warm up my shoulder and scapular area (upper back), I would start doing the stretches and motions Dr. Wexel had told me to use, allowing my muscles to more easily expand into increased ranges of motions. The loosened muscles would expand my reach drastically while the shoulder was warm, but as soon as the heat subsided my range would drastically reduce again, BUT every day, that reduction became less and less.
Cold Therapy to help heal my muscles given the newly expanded range from the heat therapy to solidify my muscles' regained range of motion. The new range of motion from the heat, as I said, was never permanent in its heated range for long, but the amount of retained range once my arm returned to homeostatic body temperature, increased exponentially, despite its slowness, once I introduced the cold therapy. The cold therapy would help the muscle inflammation from stretching and holding the eccentric motions for so long, and it would reduce muscle breakdown, and enhance muscle repair at the same time.
The next step was physiotherapy to support chiropractic therapy. I went through several therapists before finding Pascal. His methods, including trigger point therapy and dry needling, helped me regain nearly 100% functionality. While I'm almost there, the improvement is significant, making a huge difference in my frozen shoulder recovery journey.
Pascal's approach involved these two therapies mainly and I'd be lying if I said it was a completely painless experience.
Dry Needling is where a therapist uses thin needles to release tight, painful trigger points in your muscles, helping with pain and mobility. Unlike acupuncture, which is more about balancing energy, dry needling goes straight for those knotted spots, getting deep into muscle tension. It’s not exactly a spa day, but it does wonders for loosening up and getting blood flow back where you need it.
Trigger Point Therapy without the use of needles focuses on applying targeted pressure to relieve tight, knotted muscle areas called trigger points. Using techniques like massage, stretching, or pressure with fingers, hands, or tools, therapists work to release muscle tension, reduce pain, and improve blood flow. This approach aims to ease pain and restore range of motion without breaking the skin, making it a gentler alternative to dry needling.
Despite the pain, it was tremendously important to get help from these professionals to get to where I am now. While it took a while to find the right people who could help me, it took going through the many people I saw to discover what worked, and people who knew what they were doing. While I'm sure, eventually I could have found out what to do on my own, if I hadn't worked with these two, I can guarantee I would not be as far in my improvement as I am now.
Frozen shoulder recovery is a marathon, not a sprint—and if there’s one thing my own experience has taught me, it’s that persistence and patience are everything. From understanding the stages of frozen shoulder to exploring various treatments like chiropractic care, physiotherapy, and therapies like dry needling and trigger point work, each piece plays a role in reclaiming mobility.
In part 3, we’ll go even deeper, covering practical, step-by-step rehab exercises that support range of motion, stretching, and strength. I’ll share my personal approach to balancing activity with rest, and we’ll talk about how to rebuild strength in a way that doesn’t invite another flare-up. We’ll also explore how lifestyle factors like diet, stress management, and simple tools—like resistance bands and foam rollers—are essential in supporting long-term recovery and preventing future setbacks.
Finally, Part 4 will include interviews with the experts who helped me along the way, Dr. Michael Wexel and Pascal Séguin, to offer their professional insights and recommendations. Whether you’re actively managing frozen shoulder or looking to learn more about it, stay tuned for Part 2 and beyond. Recovery takes time, but with the right approach, you’ll get there—one step at a time!
In case you missed the 1st part:
Sources:
American Academy of Family Physicians. (2019). "Frozen Shoulder (Adhesive Capsulitis)." American Family Physician. Retrieved from https://www.aafp.org/pubs/afp/issues/2019/0301/p297.html.
ProHealth. "The Science of Cold Therapy and the Pros and Cons of Cold Exposure." Retrieved from https://www.prohealth.com/blogs/control-how-you-age/the-science-of-cold-therapy-and-the-pros-and-cons-of-cold-exposure.
Cleveland Clinic. "Dry Needling." Retrieved from https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/treatments/16542-dry-needling.
PhysioPedia. "Trigger Points." Retrieved from https://www.physio-pedia.com/Trigger_Points.
Harvard Health Publishing. "How to Release a Frozen Shoulder." Retrieved from https://www.health.harvard.edu/pain/how-to-release-a-frozen-shoulder#:~=The%20best%20way%20to%20do%20that%20is%20to,to%20the%20point%20of%20tension%20but%20not%20pain.
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