New treatment for ‘excruciating’ condition that is rising in numbers

Experts are trialling a commonly used eye injection to prevent the onset of "frozen shoulder".

Doctors are seeing more cases of the debilitating condition which mostly affects women.

Patients like Catherine Crouch can barely raise her arm, and can barely move it backwards making simple tasks like dressing impossible.

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"About a week and a half ago it became what I would describe as excruciating pain and I thought oh now here we go again," Crouch said.

Another bout of frozen shoulder had struck, this time on her right side.

Experts say the effects of the condition are similar to arthritis.

"When you examine them you feel like they've got end-stage arthritis," Macquarie University Associate Professor Sumit Raniga said.

"There should be no joint lining it should be bone to bone but it's not. The x-rays are completely normal."

For most patients, frozen shoulder or "adhesive capsulitis" can last two years, and goes through three distinct stages with only limited treatment options.

As patients go through the "freezing stage," they can feel stiffness and pain.

Corticosteroid injections can offer some relief.

In the frozen stage, the pain eases but patients can have only little movement.

Only when the shoulder finally "thaws" can physiotherapy help.

Researchers are now looking at the source of the pain.

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What they do know is that new blood vessels and nerve endings grow in and around the shoulder capsule during the freezing phase.

Targeting these could be the answer.

"Most like a tumour or an end stage diabetic disease in some organs, and we don't understand why that happens," Raniga said.

Blocking that action by repurposing an existing drug is the focus of this pilot trial.

"It's a treatment that's done in the eye. for millions of injections around the world every day," Raniga said.

"And it's safe in the eye." 

The trial comes at a time when doctors are seeing a rise in the number of cases fuelled by diabetes. 

Women with an underactive thyroid or ischaemic heart disease are also most at risk.

"Diabetes is having a great influence and we're seeing a lot of young pepole turning up in our clinics with this condition," Raniga said.

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