- Yu Hun Hwang
Everything about shoulder pain
Hi! Welcome to my blog.
Today I am going to talk about shoulder pain.
Shoulder pain is caused by the various issues and often times we think shoulder pain is related to only shoulder.
As I started my career as an acupuncturist, shoulder pain was the most frequent condition I treated.
Sometimes shoulder pain improved just from treating the shoulder muscles like trapezius muscle but other times it did not improve the condition.
I wanted to share my experience about fixing shoulder issues.
Defining shoulder
First, we should define shoulder because I noticed clients use shoulder differently.
Shoulder is a location of where scapula, clavicle, and humerus comes to join together.
This is scientific definition.
The shoulder, by clients, generally refers to the area from the base of the neck to the head of the humerus.
The shoulder to the client is a broader area, which may extend to the upper back.
Now we defined shoulder, we can talk about shoulder pain.
Causes of shoulder pain
Shoulder pain is caused by many different issues but most frequently neck and arm issues.
I will list out the most common causes I have seen as an acupuncturist.
Neck compression and rotation, causing pain radiating down to the shoulder
Accidents
Sports injury
Lifting heavy objects
Constant vibration from using construction equipment
Postures while working or driving
Excessive use of shoulder
Weak muscle tonicity
Those are the common conditions related to the shoulder injuries.
Medically, there are bursitis and rotator cuff injuries.
Those are what is injured, not the cause of injury.
As I treated many shoulder injuries, I found these issues showed up as a shoulder pain.
There are other causes, but the list provided is more about physical injuries to the shoulder causing shoulder pain.
Types of shoulder pain
Pain is generally divided into numbing pain, sharp pain, burning pain, and aching pain.
For shoulder pain, any or all of them can be present.
Different pain tells different possibility to what is happening.
Also if the pain comes when using the body in a certain angle or position, most likely it is misalignment.
Shoulder pain is one of the most irritable condition because we have to use our shoulder daily to work.
Prevention
Keep the shoulders open and pull the scapula in towards the spine.
Make sure to stretch and rotate the shoulders while the scapula is engaged.
The key to prevent shoulder pain is not rolling the shoulders forward.
Treatment differs to each individual based on the severity of injury and the age as well.
Recovery may take a single treatment to many treatments, and it is all dependent on the ability of the clinician.
When it comes to pain, I aim to alleviate pain 70% at the end of the treatment, but not always successful.
If the condition does not alleviate at all by the end of the first session, then I try to find the other possibilities.
When there is no history of accidents, I would expect 70% improvement from first treatment.
Everybody practices differently, but if your clinician is asking you to come visit without creating much result, I would recommend trying a new clinician.
The result that I seek for is not just a sensations but movements and mobilities as well.
Before I start a treatment, I would check the range of motion, and specific posture that causes pain.
Then I check again after the treatment.
Qualitative results are one of the measurements, and if possible incorporating other methods to check a client is recommended.
These are informational purpose and should not be treated as legal, medical, or professional advices. Please ask your medical doctors or local experts about their advices.