For years, the pain in Christine Wallace’s shoulder steadily worsened. What began as a dull ache became a constant, grinding stiffness – until the retired teacher could barely lift her left arm more than an inch.
Simple tasks such as getting dressed or washing her hair became an ordeal, forcing her to rely on trips to a salon. Even tending to her beloved garden was no longer possible.
After tests ruled out tears or fractures, she was diagnosed with frozen shoulder – a condition affecting around one in 20 adults, in which the capsule surrounding the joint becomes inflamed and stiff, causing pain and severely restricting movement.
Her life – and independence – were in tatters.
Yet today, aged 78, Christine is pain-free – gardening, shopping and washing her hair whenever she likes. So what brought about this turnaround?
She credits a surprising form of physical therapy – one that focused not on the site of pain, but on a completely different part of her body.
The breakthrough came during a massage session targeting her left hip.
Footage of the moment – when she went from barely being able to lift her arm to raising it fully above her head – has since gone viral on social media, amassing more than a million views.
Shared by the chiropractor she visited, Dr Veera Gupta, the clip shows Christine demonstrating how little she can move her arm before Dr Gupta performs a vigorous massage, working up her leg from ankle to hip.
The treatment appears painless – at one point Christine giggles and says she is ticklish.
After a few minutes of kneading her hip, Dr Gupta asks her to lift her arm again. ‘It’s so easy,’ she says, moving it above her head.
The video raises a question: can applying pressure to a seemingly unrelated part of the body really reverse years of chronic pain?
It may sound counterintuitive, but there is evidence that pain in one area can sometimes be influenced by problems elsewhere – a phenomenon known as referred pain.
There is also growing interest in fascia – the network of connective tissue surrounding muscles and organs – and how stiffness in one area may affect movement in another, although this remains an evolving field.
Christine, from Point Pleasant, New Jersey, believes her problems built up over many years.
As a teacher, she spent long days leaning over desks and evenings hunched over textbooks. She lived alone, had no children, and prided herself on staying active despite the aches she put down to the job.
At first, the discomfort was easy to dismiss: a twinge in her hip, tightness across her back, stiffness in her shoulders.
But even after retiring, the pain did not ease. Instead, it crept into her daily life, making it increasingly difficult to live independently.
Then, in 2017, she fell and landed on her shoulder. ‘It was excruciating,’ she recalled.
Frozen shoulder progresses through three distinct phases: freezing, frozen and thawing. Even then full mobility may never be restored
Dr Gupta believes in a whole person approach, releasing stiffness in one area to improve movement in another
After a couple of days, the pain became unbearable and she went to hospital. Doctors reassured her nothing was broken and sent her home.
But the pain worsened. She began relying on painkillers just to get through the day.
‘I struggled to even get dressed in the mornings. I couldn’t raise my arm at all – it was really scary, but I tried my best not to think about it and get on with my normal life.’
Over the next eight years, she underwent X-rays, scans and other tests. Doctors ruled out damage to the rotator cuff – the group of muscles and tendons that stabilise the shoulder.
But every test came back clear. There were no tears and no obvious cause.
Eventually, she turned to Dr Veera Gupta, a chiropractor who diagnosed frozen shoulder.
Chiropractic focuses on musculoskeletal problems, often through hands-on manipulation of joints and soft tissues.
While some patients report relief, evidence for its effectiveness – particularly beyond short-term pain improvement – remains mixed, and it is not routinely recommended within mainstream medicine.
Dr Dean Eggitt, an NHS GP in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, says many of the benefits may be psychological.
‘There is a large psychological component to pain,’ he says. ‘The severity of pain we experience is often mediated by our mood.
‘So, if you can improve a patient’s mood, by convincing them that a massage is going to help them recover from the injury, then this can lessen their pain.
‘However, you’re not improving the injury itself, just the way they perceive the pain.’
Frozen shoulder typically affects people between the ages of 40 and 60 and is more common in women.
It develops gradually, with a painful ‘freezing’ phase followed by stiffness, before slowly improving over time – although recovery can take months or even years.
The exact cause is often unclear, but it is thought to involve inflammation and thickening of the capsule surrounding the shoulder joint, sometimes triggered by injury, surgery or prolonged immobility.
Dr Gupta says her approach is to look at the whole body, rather than focus on one ‘problem area’.
‘Shoulder pain doesn’t necessarily mean the problem is in the shoulder – it could be coming from elsewhere in the body,’ she says.
She believes tension built up over time in Christine’s hip was affecting how her body moved as a whole.
During one session, when she applied pressure to the hip, the result was immediate.
‘When I started treating Christine, she could barely lift her arm a couple of inches – and even this was incredibly painful,’ Dr Gupta recalls.
As the pressure was applied, Christine was able to raise her arm fully above her head.
‘It was like a miracle,’ Christine says. ‘I wanted to cry and hug her all at the same time.’
After three sessions, she had regained full movement – something she had not experienced in years.
‘I couldn’t quite believe it,’ she says. ‘I feel so lucky that I am now able to live such an active life – which I thought was gone forever.’
Other experts are sceptical.
‘You can’t ease a joint-related injury in the shoulder by massaging the hip,’ says Dr Eggitt. ‘It may help the perception of pain in the short term, but not in the long term.’
Dr Gupta stresses that recovery is not always this rapid, and most cases of frozen shoulder improve gradually over time, often with physiotherapy, exercise and pain management.
Without treatment, the condition can make everyday tasks increasingly difficult and lead to muscle weakness through lack of use.
The simplest advice, she says, is to keep moving – particularly through a full range of motion – and to address stiffness early, before it begins to affect other parts of the body.
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