How Do You Break Up Scar in Your Shoulder Without Surgery?

There are a lot of ways. One is therapy, but a very nice combination is a combination of cortisone injections and therapy.

Let’s say someone has a frozen shoulder. Many times, those are idiopathic, meaning they just happen, or they can be post-operative. Sometimes, people have a lot of scarring and tightening after surgery.

We’ve got what we call the frozen shoulder protocol, where we do an ultrasound-guided injection all around the shoulder—a large dose of local anesthetic. Then, a manipulation by our therapists right after. The shoulder is numb, and they can break up those adhesions. Then, we place you on oral steroids and put you on a stretching program and another set of NSAIDs.

We’re doing multiple medications, large injections all around the shoulder under ultrasound guidance, a manipulation by the therapist. It has been incredibly effective in our practice at breaking up shoulder adhesions without doing surgery.