A Practical Guide to Shoulder Pain

Persisting pain is, well, a pain! Nobody wants to have to suffer throughout their day with twangs of discomfort or downright debilitating pain. It interrupts your sleep, your work, exercise, downtime – wherever you go and whatever it is that you have planned, your shoulder pain knows about it and is there to meet you at every turn. So, how do you deal with this ongoing discomfort, you ask (or perhaps cry)? Educating yourself on how to cope, and contacting an accredited professional, doctor, physician or shoulder physio, for targeted treatment. Read on for a very practical guide to managing and curing your shoulder pain…

Understanding Your Shoulders

Your shoulders are far more intricate and important than you might think – in fact, until you found yourself with an injury or underlying pain, you likely paid little to no thought to them at all! Your shoulder is made up of a complex arrangement of ligaments and bones, all mobilised and interconnecting every time you move your arm. This complexity makes your shoulders highly vulnerable to pain issues or larger scale injuries. The three bones that make up your shoulders are the clavicle, humerus and the scapula, with four joints connecting these bones with all of your muscles, tissue and ligaments. The major joint that we’re all really referring to when we’re talking about our shoulders is the glenohumeral joint. This joint is what allows us to get the huge range of motion and span that we use our shoulders for, and this is the area that is often vulnerable to injury or long term pain – it’s working very hard to make your day to day movement possible. The glenohumeral joint is the most common source of pain when you’re experiencing trouble with your shoulders.

Causes of Pain

As stated above, your shoulder’s range of motion and amazing capabilities make it quite vulnerable to injury. You might experience pain from working out, training, stretching, sitting at your desk or even just from doing mundane movements over and over again. Pain might also be caused by problems, diseases or injuries in other areas of our bodies, including our arms, backs, necks and even lungs. Ageing causes wear and tear to take its toll, so sometimes the source of pain is just time. Even if an injury has a clear cause, it might have been developing within your joint for some time. A physiotherapist is great for shoulder pain as they use a holistic method of treatment to heal your form as a whole, instead of targeting just one area of the body.

Some very common conditions that could be causing you pain include Frozen Shoulder, AC Joint Separation, Labrum Tear, Biceps Tendonitis, Shoulder Impingement and Rotator Cuff Pain. All of these issues require a proper diagnosis, so it’s usually best to head to a GP or professional before doing anything else. You will get a referral to seek the correct treatment for your condition. Doing this quickly is going to save you a lot of time, effort and unnecessary pain.

Treatment

Shoulder pain is one of the third most common forms of skeletal pain experienced in the modern age, so there are plenty of resources out there to try in order to repair your discomfort and move forward happily and healthily.

Foam Roller:

Foam rollers are amazing for helping to ease tightness, joint pain and muscle spasms. There are lots of ways that a simple roller can help to ensure that you are pain free now and far into the future, do plenty of research and speak with a physician before you try anything to avoid injury.

Exercises:

Again, exercises are going to be far more effective when they have been prescribed by a professional physiotherapist or general practitioner. Take home exercises are going to strengthen the area and curb the likelihood of an injury reoccurring down the line.

Pain Medication:

Of course, if you’re really in need of some pain relief to tide you over until you get the chance to book in for some professional care, you can always take some standard over the counter pain medication.

If you’re feeling any shoulder pain or discomfort, you can visit clinics like Evoker or other physiotherapist near you.