How to Treat Shoulder Pain
People of all ages suffer from shoulder pain. The causes are varied and range from an unknown start to a traumatic event. Many people develop shoulder pain from performing repetitive tasks for long periods of time. Others will experience pain in the shoulder after a fall on the shoulder or onto outstretched arm. Sometimes the reason for the pain is not so obvious. I see many cases in which a person can not identify what caused the pain in the shoulder. Often times this pain to unknown reasons, can occur when someone bumps their shoulder against the door jam in the middle of the night, if you look at the bathroom. This rather benign action triggers a chemical process in the shoulder, extending over several days. Eventually this will cause pain in the shoulder. Since the “injury” occurred several days before the person can not recall any case that the process started. Regardless of the cause of pain in the shoulder of the treatment is often similar from case to case.
The treatment of the shoulder may include different areas. Conservative measures include medication (inflammatories, pain medications), rest, cortisone injections and / or physical therapy. All these methods can be effective to help relieve a painful shoulder especially if used in combination with each other.
Often, if you contact your doctor with complaints of shoulder pain, they are brought before some medication as described above. Rest is also recommended, although this is not always easy for people to follow depending on their activity levels or their occupations. Injections for painful shoulder are sometimes given immediately, depending on your doctor’s philosophy. Some MD’s would you rather to physical therapy before the injection of the painful shoulder. Injections are not the end all beat all, and they do not provide relief for all patients that they receive. Sometimes it takes a well rounded physical therapy program can alleviate shoulder pain and you will not be examined, with an injection.
Physical therapy treatment can consist of the following measures:
1. Therapeutic exercises – this is from the range of movement, conditioning and strengthening exercises. The goal here is to maximize return and loss of range of motion, improving the overall endurance of the shoulder blade and shoulder muscles and improve the strength of these same muscles. The muscles around the shoulder blade must be conditioned and strengthened just as the main shoulder muscles would be because the shoulder muscles have to work in conjunction with the muscles of the shoulder in order to restore normal movement and to prevent recurrence of pain.
2. Manual therapy – this is from one source, about the treatment that physical therapists would lead to you. This could be from joint mobilization (ie techniques to improve joint movement and relieve pain) or soft tissue massage (ie techniques to improve the muscle and connective tissue flexibility and relieve pain).
3. Arrangements – this consists of machines, the physical therapist may be to your painful shoulder to support pain relief and healing along with the other treatments mentioned above. Some of these machines are ultrasound, electrical stimulation, TENS, or iontophoresis.
All these measures may be in the treatment of a painful shoulder. It is in clinical practice to use a combination of these measures. It was my experience in the treatment of hundreds of shoulder patients over the years, the therapeutic exercise is an absolute in the treatment of painful shoulder. A round case exercises based on the scapula and shoulder muscles are the cornerstones of a good physical therapy for the treatment of shoulder pain.