- Hi. This is Dr. Ryan Suh.
I'm a Gonstead New York City Chiropractor
in midtown Manhattan.
In this video, we're gonna talk about frozen shoulder,
also known as adhesive capsulitis.
So, we're gonna talk about what it is,
what causes it, and how we fix it.
So, frozen shoulder is characterized by,
you'll have some patients, they'll try
to lift their shoulder up, kay, their arm.
They have no problems going up to 45 degrees,
but once they start to try to get up to 90 degrees
or so, they have a lot of trouble doing so
and try to go past 90 degrees over upwards,
and it's almost impossible.
Because it's so stuck and also a lot of discomfort
is express, they have a lot of trouble doing so.
So, part of component is all the ligament
and the scar tissues and also tendons,
they start to lock up.
There's also a lot of inflammation in the area as well,
in addition to, they also have a lot of trouble
trying to get their arm behind their body.
So, as long as they try to reach behind their back,
so things like that.
So, they'll have a lot of trouble doing so,
or it's pretty much impossible.
You either going from the back or from the front.
So, what causes it?
Well, there's two particular components to it.
So, we'll talk about the most common one,
what I see in this clinic.
This muscle group over here, is the trapezius,
also known as the traps.
So, we have a particular nerve that goes to this muscle,
that exits from the base of the skull
and enters into the traps.
So, whenever we have a structural misalignment
on the upper part of your neck,
but, more importantly, that causes your skull
to misalign what happens is there's obstruction to it.
So, when there's an obstruction to this nerve,
and it blocks it, this muscle is no longer functioning
as well as it should.
So, therefore it gets a little locked up.
And since the traps are attached to the shoulder itself,
that's part of your reason why that joint capsule soft,
they start to get inflamed and it starts
to get stuck in place.
So, number two and this is a little less common,
but this is also on somethings I've noticed as well.
The deal is this, this is the latissimus dorsi muscle,
known as the lats.
There are two points where it connects to.
The lats attaches all the way from here
and also attaches to tendonous components,
down to the pelvis, it also anchors itself
all along the lower part of your spine, the lumbars.
So, when we start to have a structural misalignment
in the lower part of your spine,
it can tug and pull on these muscles.
So, in essence, what happen is,
part of that problem where you just have
a lot of difficulty going beyond 90 degrees,
yeah, the lats will try to pull things down
because the primary responsibility of the lats
is pull things towards you, pull upwards,
and also going backwards as well.
So again, when we have a structural misalignment
in the lower part of your spine over there,
it really tugs on that muscle and it doesn't allow
it to function properly.
So, those are the two major components to it.
So, how do we correct it?
Well, we determine which one is the actual problem.
Do structural radiographs
and do a structural integrity examination,
we determine is the problem located here,
that's blocking off this nerve?
Or, is there a severe misalignment somewhere
in either in the lumbars or in the pelvis,
the lower part of your back or the foundation
that's causing the muscle to be tugged really hard?
So, now we're gonna jump right to an x-ray case.
I'm gonna show you one of the more complicated ones,
where this person actually had both of them.
In this x-ray case, just like what we discussed before,
misalignment in the upper part of the neck,
can cause problems to the accessory nerve,
resulting in the trapezius muscles to lock up.
So, normal, these two lines should line up.
They should be parallel.
Abnormal, that's what we see here.
The lines diverge, which indicates the skull over here,
what it does was, it shifted, moving forward,
and upwards, resulting in this space over here,
where the accessory nerve comes out,
it gets constricted right at this level.
So, by realigning the skull, moving it backwards
and inferiorwards, sliding it back down gives it more space
to this area over here, freeing up,
removing the constriction to the accessory nerve,
resulting in the trapezius muscle to relax.
We're now looking at the lower part of the spine.
This is the low back, the lumbar area.
I drew a line at the back of the fifth lumbar
and the fourth lumbar.
Now, normal, these two lines should line up,
just like railroad tracks.
This line, as you see here, is four millimeters backwards
in relation to this one over here.
So, this one, this bone is our problem.
This is what causing her double whammy,
both her trapezius and her lats to result
in the frozen shoulder.
So, by realigning her occiput, freeing up the nerve
to the accessory nerve, probably the trapezius
and also the fourth lumbar, realign the fourth lumbar
back to where it needs to be,
taking the tension off the lats, resulted in both
muscles to relax, freeing it up and help resolve
and fix her frozen shoulder.
So I hope you find this information very useful.
So, please like, share this video on your timeline.
Got any questions? Leave a comment below. I'll answer them.
Thank you. Have a good day.