The Frozen Shoulder Workbook: Trigger Point Therapy for Overcoming Pain & Regaining Range of Motion

What an amazingly useful book! I was in so much pain that I was barely managing anything but work, my social life had disappeared and I couldn't use that arm for even basic tasks. My physiotherapist had given up and referred me on, my GP, who told me I might have to just live like this for the next 2 - 5 years (a thought I couldn't bear) wanted to refer me for a cortisone injection or keyhole surgery - neither of which are guaranteed to make any difference. This book was my last attempt to avoid those. It's some of the best money I've ever spent. I thoroughly recommend anyone with a frozen shoulder try it - 2 weeks later I no longer have to lie down as soon as I get in from work, I've been out 4 nights in the last week and I'm enjoying life again. I'm not pain free yet, but it's manageable and I have almost 100% movement back in the mornings, maybe 85% overall, and when my shoulder stiffens up again, I've learnt the tools to release it. You have to be committed to working on the problem, it's not a pain-free solution (although it's much more manageable pain) and it's a complicated book to follow at times. My only criticism is that it would have been useful to have a quick "how to" guide and not have to plough through all the technical terms and anatomy. Everyone with a frozen shoulder should be given the strategies in this book - it would save years of pain for the patient and a huge amount of money for the NHS!

Having experienced a "frozen shoulder" for 18 months on one side and then developing the same on the other side, after another 12 months of pain I decided, out of desperation, to give this book a go. Within less than 20 minutes of opening the book, my chronic pain had gone and, over 2 years later, it hasn't returned. The book literally changed my life and did so in minutes. The theory seems to be that what is often diagnosed as adhesive capsulitis actually and often may be something else that whilst chronic and painful can be resolved through trigger point therapy or even self administered trigger point therapy. The book explains how pain in one region of, say, the arm can actually be caused by a muscle adhesion in another part of the arm or shoulder or back. My massaging the source of the point - the adhesion point - it is possible, the book explains, to ease or even resolve the pain. In my case this worked rapidly, dramatically and completely. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It has, for me, been life changing.

I bought this book out of desperation as I was in agony with Frozen Shoulder. It does take sometime to read and get your head around the technical stuff, and I found myself going over it quite a few times, but as I couldn't move with pain I gave it the time it needed. You can jump chapters and get straight to the necessary bits, but I think it's worth reading it all to get the whole picture. I found the tennis ball treatments to be worth buying the book for. I also bought the Theta cane to help locate the trigger points, but found the tennis ball to be just as good. You have to get used to the idea that you will have to do the exercises daily, constantly and it's painful, but Frozen shoulder is agony no matter what you do or don't do. I can say that I did find it helpful, but I also had 3 treatments with a Chiropractor who knew exactly how to hit the trigger points and that made a huge difference. My pain has now gone but my arm is still "stuck", I was hoping that like the author, I could get my arm working and functioning like normal within weeks, but it's now nearly 5 months since my shoulder Froze and it hasn't budged, but I'm glad that I bought this book as it did help me a lot.

I had suffered with shoulder pain in the left shoulder for over two years and when I went to my doctor he said I had degeneration of the shoulder joint (no X-rays etc just his opinion!).I wasn't satisfied with what he said, nor his methods of diagnosis, and tried to find help on line. Luckily I came across this book and tried out the method. My husband luaghed at my rubber ball in a football sock, but after about three weeks the pain began to ease and I have now been completely pain free for eight months.It seems that what appears to be such a simple remedy can acually work, but it has. Try it.

If you have a frozen shoulder, I understand how awful it is. one of the worst pains of my life... You will know it can take up to 3 years to heal. I bought this book 2 years into that period, I wish I had known about it before. I bought myself a tennis ball and used a long sock with it as a massage aid and started massaging where I needed to. By the time you work through the book, you should be able to determine which muscles need help and hopefully heal a bit faster. I found physio useless because it is not treating the trigger points you need to get rid of. I recommend this book to anyone who will listen who has this problem.. don't suffer in silence.

I bought this book because I am suffering with a frozen shoulder. A very technical book for the lay person but none the less interesting and thought provoking especially as current procedures are not always successful.

Given as a present to a friend in agony. This was very imformative and easy to read with plenty of practical help for solutions. A great book to have handy on the shelf, should you be subjected to this unfortunate condition.

I bought this for my mum as she had a frozen shoulder. I had never seen her in so much pain and what doctors said would take months of injections and possibly even surgery, she managed to fix in a few weeks of doing whatever exercises are in this book. The only problem is that she won't shut up about it!

This book is by Clair Davies, author of the famous "Trigger Point Therapy Workbook", and it concentrates on Davies' own personal fascination -- the shoulder. Though I have a shoulder separation, not a frozen shoulder, this book has become remarkably useful to me. Not only is it helping me understand (and possibly, partially correct) my injured shoulder, it is helping to expose and correct all the other little niggling aches and pains in my neck and upper back -- unrelated to the injury -- that I've lived with for ages. -- In fact, the greatest benefit for me is an unexpected one -- I'm seeing some relief with a weird problem that I've only recently learned is called "thoracic outlet syndrome". I would recommend this material for anyone who wants to understand muscle-related upper-body pain, whether that pain is from injury, chronic tension, poor posture/ muscle imbalance, or repetitive motion from work and sports. (And because shortened muscles sometimes impinge upon nerves, this book would probably help with many nerve-related upper-body problems as well, as is the case with the thoracic outlet syndrome I mentioned above.) The information isn't super-easy, and it isn't about quick fixes (though that may be possible for you). To get anything out of it, you'll have to painstakingly locate the relevant muscles (some of which are small and/or hard to get to) and learn how to manipulate them -- it's a great lesson in anatomy. And then you'll have to seek out, experiment with, and work on your own individual pain-spots with persistence and perseverance. All you need to cure yourself of shoulder (and probably any upper-back pain) is most likely right here, in these pages, somewhere. And that when you decide to really fully take your well-being into your own hands (literally) -- you can become well with this help of this workable, comprehensive information. Highly recommended.

Dieses Buch war das absolute AHA-Erlebnis. Auch nach monatelanger Internet-Recherche (ja, dafür hat man Zeit, wenn man den rechten Arm nur noch im Bereich weniger Kubikzentimeter bewegen kann) hatte ich keine befriedigenden Informationen zu Ursache, Ablauf und Behandlung einer Frozen Shoulder (Adhäsiver Kapsulitis etc) finden können. Jedenfalls nicht logisch und nicht widerspruchsfrei. Gerade noch rechtzeitig vor einer geplanten Operation (die völlig unnötig und mit einer relativ hohen Wahrscheinlichkeit auch wirkungslos gewesen wäre) fiel mir dieses Buch in die Hände und einige Tage später waren die nächtlichen Schmerzen auf ein erträgliches Maß reduziert und wurden mit zunehmender Selbstbehandlung immer weniger. Dafür war es nötig, das Buch immer wieder zur Hand zu nehmen, immer wieder alle Muskeln durchzutesten, manchmal findet man Triggerpunkte erst, wenn andere beseitigt sind oder wenn man mehr Erfahrung hat. Die Beweglichkeit hat sich bei mir dadurch allerdings kaum verändert, mittlerweile habe ich aber endlich eine Krankengymnastin gefunden, die in der Lage ist, mir zu helfen: Bei einem Krankheitsverlauf über viele Monate sind eben auch Bindegewebe verklebt, die Haltung verdreht, Schulterblatt verschoben usw. Der Anfang der ganzen Problematik liegt aber definitiv in der Entstehung von Triggerpunkten. Wenn diese rechtzeitig behandelt werden, bleibt einem eine lange Leidensgeschichte erspart. Wissenschaftlich gut begründet, logisch und auch von einer ganzen Reihe hochrangiger Fachleute empfohlen, handelt es sich hier um eine risikoarme und erfolgsversprechende Methode zur Selbstbehandlung. Wer Englisch kann und bereit ist, Zeit und Energie zu investieren, um dieses Buch zu verstehen (von den Fachbegriffen nicht abschrecken lassen - bei Diskussionen mit Orthopäden ist es sehr hilfreich, sich präzise ausdrücken zu können!) und sich über längere Zeit selber zu behandeln, ist mit diesem Buch ausgezeichnet bedient. Einfache Zeichnungen, Erläuterungen zu jedem einzelnen Muskel (Funktion und Aufgabe, Ursachen für Überlastung, typische Symptome) sorgen für einen hohen Wiedererkennungswert des Krankheitsbildes (endlich habe ich es nicht nur erlebt, sondern auch gelesen, dass es bei Frozen Shoulder typisch ist, dass eine reflexartige Ausholbewegung nach hinten solche mörderischen Schmerzen verursacht...). Die typisch amerikanischen Erfolgsstorys sind motivierend und erklären auch viele Symptome sehr anschaulich, sollten aber sicher nicht als Garantie mißverstanden werden. Ebenso empfehlenswert ist das Arbeitsbuch Triggerpunkt-Therapie: Die bewährte Methode zur Linderung von Muskelschmerzen vom gleichen Autor. In diesem Buch, das den gesamten Bewegungsapparat abhandelt, wird die Therapie der Schulter nicht ganz so ausführlich beschrieben, es ist aber trotzdem eine gute Option für alle, die sich die englische Version nicht zutrauen. Und natürlich für alle, denen es woanders wehtut :-)

Excellent reference book. If you have any shoulder issues, get this book. Also get the the 1st book, same Authors the book, The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook is phenomenal! These books will help you eliminate pain & discomfort from many areas of your body. Share The books with friends and family are better yet get them their own copies.

This book was intrumental in helping me release many trigger points on the muscles affected by a recent rotator cuff and arm injury. It is now my daily reference book until I am healed. It is a must for one's library for times of injury.

I would like to tell you how the Frozen Shoulder Workbook helped me overcome a painful but common illness with no surgery or manipulation under anesthesia. I found relief! This past spring I fell while carrying a folding chair and bruised my ribs. Due to the rib pain I stopped my daily stretching and swimming. I was also under a lot of stress at work. The rib healed but I began to have arm pain on reaching down. One time when plugging in a power cord I had shooting pains in my shoulder and arm. (ten on a 1 to 10 pain scale) I returned to swimming and found it to be painful so I went to my primary doctor. She said it was bursitis and gave me an anti-inflammation drug and sent we to physical therapy. It got worse and my shoulder froze up. PT was no help and the pain got worse. X-rays showed a normal joint when I went to a shoulder specialist. He said it was bursitis and possible tendonitis. He gave me a cortisone shot in the shoulder and a prescription for a shoulder MRI, if it didn't resolve itself in a week. No relief from the shot and the MRI would have cost me US $195 out of pocket so I looked for an alternate plan. I went to a Chiropractor and I sent off for this book. The Chiropractor told me I should have come to him sooner before the shoulder froze up. I could not lift my arm over my head, work was very difficult and nighttime required sleeping pills and painkillers. My neck muscles on that side where very tight and the scapula (shoulder blade) was not moving. (I learned that the scapula must rotate 30 degrees for the arm to reach over the head completely.) Clair Davies book is excellent, I began using his techniques to massage my tight neck, chest, shoulder, and arm muscles. The first thing to improve was the pain. I found a great massage therapist to help me and the Chiropractor worked to free up the shoulder joint capsule by stretching after 15 minutes of icing the shoulder . The Trigger Point Therapy truly works if you follow this books instruction carefully. Work through chapter 5 and 6, massage with the book open. It is not an easy path but your diligent self-treatment will pay off (there are 24 muscles that help the shoulder move). Stay positive, work on standing up strait and reducing stress. Today I was able to hang from a chin up bar and pain is almost gone. I have resumed swimming and next week I will begin upper body strengthening exercises. One tip not in the book is that I suggest is to rest your shoulder completely one day per week, the following day you will see improved range of motion from the relaxed trigger points. Good Luck!