Shoulder Pain You Can’t Shrug Off?
Shoulder pain is the third most common cause of musculoskeletal pain and can start to affect normal daily tasks such as reaching, driving, putting on a jacket, or even brushing your hair!
What Causes Shoulder Pain
Shoulder pain can be caused by trauma such as a fall or a wrench to the arm, wear and tear as you get older, injury sustained from lifting heavy objects or strenuous exercise, or built-up tension from sitting for long periods of time.
Understanding the Shoulder Joint
The shoulder is the most mobile joint in the body, making it susceptible to injury. Often, we think of the shoulder as where our arm meets our torso. This is part of the shoulder joint, but the shoulder is actually comprised of four joints:
- Glenohumeral joint, where the arm joins the shoulder blade (what people normally think of as the shoulder joint).
- Acromioclavicular joint (shoulder blade and collar bone).
- Sternoclavicular joint (collar bone and chest bone).
- Scapulothoracic joint (shoulder blade and mid-back).
Due to the complexity of the shoulder joint and the way these four joints work together, they can compensate for tightness and restriction in each other for a while before we begin to suffer from pain or restricted movement. Thus, shoulder pain can sometimes take a long period of time to completely settle.
Diagnosing Your Shoulder Pain
Shoulder pain is often caused by muscle strains such as rotator cuff injuries, frozen shoulder, arthritis, tendonitis and tendon strain, trapped nerves, or bursitis. Understanding the cause of your shoulder pain is vital for effective treatment and management of your condition.
Shoulder pain can be diagnosed by physical examination, a review of your medical history, or the use of imaging such as ultrasound, X-ray, or MRI.
How to Manage Your Shoulder Pain
Shoulder pain can be managed with painkillers, ice and heat therapy, physical therapy such as osteopathy, limiting physical activity, stretches, injections, or surgery.
How Can Osteopathy Help Shoulder Pain?
An osteopath will take a detailed case history to understand the cause and contributing factors to your shoulder pain and help you understand the likely cause of your pain. They will then assess your posture and the mobility of the area where you are experiencing symptoms, as well as your entire body, to identify the cause of your symptoms. Often, the pain we experience is the body compensating for another area of the body.
An osteopath will always explain to you what they have found and what your working diagnosis is for your shoulder pain before providing treatment or advice.
An osteopath may use a variety of hands-on techniques addressing your whole body to get your body working together as one unit! Techniques may include joint articulation, manipulation, and soft tissue work, which increase joint mobility, relieve muscle tension, enhance blood and nerve supply to tissues, and aid the body’s own healing mechanisms.
An osteopath may also give self-management advice, or they may refer you to another healthcare professional where appropriate. They may refer you to see Tom at Amber Health for a diagnostic ultrasound to help diagnose your shoulder pain.