A healthy patient with bilateral frozen hips preceding bilateral frozen shoulders: a cautionary tale

Adhesive capsulitis of the shoulder (frozen shoulder) is a common disease characterised by spontaneous onset of pain and restriction of movement, followed by 'thawing', with complete or near-complete resolution. Adhesive capsulitis of the hip has been reported in around a dozen patients. This report describes an otherwise-healthy middle-aged woman with apparent sequential resolving adhesive capsulitis of all four ball-and-socket joints over a 9-year period, initially affecting each hip and then each shoulder sequentially. The likely hip diagnosis became clear only retrospectively with development of the second frozen shoulder, 5 years after the first pain. All joints subsequently resolved within the expected timeframe and the patient remains healthy, other than having mild hypertension. This case illustrates that, when hip precedes shoulder involvement, there is the potential for the frozen hip to receive alternate diagnoses for which invasive open hip surgery could unnecessarily be recommended.