Were you an active high school student? Maybe playing baseball, football, or basketball? Spent a lot of time in the gym working on upper body and arm strength. Now you might still want to be active but you work at a desk to make a living for yourself and your loved ones. Maybe feeling a little tight in your shoulders and can’t throw the pigskin as much as you want to. Here in Provo and Utah Valley, we want to help educate you as best we can so you can help make the best decision of your medical care.
Shoulder pain is a common symptom that many Americans deal with. Approximately 15% of men and 25% of women deal with shoulder pain.
There are primarily two types of injuries that occur at the shoulder. 1) Traumatic injury: A fall on your shoulder, pulled muscle while lifting X amount of weight, or major hit to your shoulder in a football game, car accident, slip and fall etc.. 2) Gradual pain that comes from an unknown cause.
Here are a few shoulder conditions that we tend to see more of:
- Anterior (front) Shoulder impingement
- Posterior rib joint dysfunction
- Mild Rotator cuff Strain
- Rotator cuff /tendinopathy
- Frozen shoulder syndrome (adhesive capsulitis)
- Scapular Dyskinesis
- Biceps tendinopathy
- Upper Cross Syndrome
- Thoracic Outlet Syndrome
- Cervical (neck) radiculopathy
- SLAP lesion
- AC joint sprain
If you want to improve your shoulder health, schedule a consultation today. Click on the link below to get started.
What are all of these conditions? Here is a brief summary of each one.
Cervical radiculopathy
With shoulder pain, that first thing that must be done is “ruling out the Cervical spine”. What that means is making sure that the shoulder pain is not coming from some other issue in your neck. There are many times that some structures in your neck can refer pain to the shoulder. Those structures could be a joint or disc in your neck, or a muscle erituation from your neck. It could also be some nerve irritation coming from your neck as well. So rule #1, rule out the neck.
Anterior Shoulder impingement
This is a common condition that is seen in our culture. A true impingement is when the a part of the shoulder blade is not moving as properly as it should when you raise your arm up and in result it pinches a muscle/tendon deep in the shoulder and causes irritation there. This generally causes pain along the top front part of your shoulder. This seems very common in desk workers, students, and those that just like to do bench presses at the gym. They generally come from a muscle imbalance around your whole upper body. Best way to address this is to address those imbalances in your upper back, neck, core, and shoulder. Retrain the body ‘s proper alignment and movement.
Posterior Rib joint dysfunction
This is a surprisingly unknown condition that goes missed by many people and even other medical providers. With a rib dysfunction there will be pain along the back of your shoulder blade. But already remember rule #1 with this. Rule out the neck first. The neck commonly will refer pain down to this area of the shoulder blade. If it’s a true rib problem, it is probably a sharp pain with movement and when pressure is applied to a point along the back part of your shoulder blade. We see this alot with desk workers and students, again. That hunched back posture for long periods of time does not put you in a successful position.
Rotator cuff strain/tendinopathy
Rotator cuff muscles are the stabilizing muscles deep in your shoulder. They keep your shoulder centered in the joint and control all the fine movements needed in the shoulder. Very important to shoulder health. This is another common orthopedic condition in the shoulder. There is a long pain in the shoulder with movement. This comes from traumatic injuries or overuse of the shoulder. A weak, painful shoulder and night pain is a common symptom of this condition. If you are over the age of 50 and you are experiencing shoulder pain, there is high likelihood that pain is coming from a rotator cuff. Depending on the severity of the injury, these can be treated conservatively or surgically. If you want to see the injured muscle, you will need to have an MRI done, an x-ray will not show you what you need to know.
Frozen Shoulder syndrome
This is an irritating condition to say the least. This is when you feel your shoulder is literally frozen and difficult to move due to pain or just severe stiffness. This is irritating because most likely this will come with no warning. One day your shoulder feels great, then next, it hurts and you can’t move it. Best thing is to take it day by day. See a musculoskeletal specialist to get the best treatment and results.
Scapular Dyskinesis
Dyskinesis, what does that mean? Basically, this means that your shoulder blade is not moving the way it was meant to move or the way it moved when you were just starting to walk. This is common to see with many other conditions mentioned. Such as shoulder impingement, frozen shoulder, rotator cuff tendinopathy and more. This will probably not be painful, but is a leading cause to those painful conditions. Poor posture and a stiff upper back can lead to this problem.
Upper Cross Syndrome
This is a foundational condition that leads to all other painful conditions listed. This is a muscle and joint imbalance. This comes after sitting at a desk many hours, many days, many weeks, months, years. Again, this will not be painful but these muscle and joint imbalances are what lead to pain elsewhere. This can also lead to pain in the neck and lower back.
Thoracic outlet syndrome (TOS)
This is a nerve irritation condition. You have a lot of nerves that come from your neck and go through the area of your shoulder. A lot of nerves going in one direction with not a lot of room. If there is one thing you should know about nerves, it is that they are claustrophobic. They like their space and if anything gets in their bubble, they will let you know about it. TOS is when those nerves lose their space within muscle or your collarbone and you have severe symptoms down your arm.
Who do we help?
The types of people that we see come in with shoulder injuries are typically those who have had a traumatic event at their shoulder. For example, someone who slips and falls on their shoulder or uses their shoulder to brace their fall. Or more commonly someone who sits at a desk for multiple hours in their day working on a computer or studying, reading or watching television. Golfer’s lead shoulder will often cause some issues, basketball players, crossfitters, swimmers, quarterbacks and tennis players often deal with shoulder pain.
Golfers and shoulder pain
Shoulder pain is the next leading source of pain for golfers, behind lower back pain. So what can lead to shoulder issues? A few different types of swing can cause shoulder pain. Chicken winging, casting, scooping are just a few. If you hit a lot of fat or “chucky” shots, this puts a lot of force through your arms and can lead to a build up of stress and ultimately shoulder pain.
Follow this link to a detailed video of what those shoulder injury risk swing types look like.
What to Expect
What can you expect when you consult with Uintah Spinal Health:
With your best interest in mind, we will do a history, goal setting and full body (head to toe) evaluation and determine where your weak link might be that leads to the shoulder issue you are experiencing. Oftentimes that shoulder is a source of pain but not the cause of pain. After the evaluation, a tailored treatment plan will be designed for you to help you reach your goals you want to achieve. This treatment plan may consist of deep tissue manual therapy, Chiropractic adjustments, Physical therapy exercise, Dry needling, at home recommendations and sleeping recommendations. Frequent reassessments will be done to determine your progress and for open communication between us and your care.
We help athletes of all types (I believe mothers are also considered athletes) in the Provo, Orem, Springville, Utah area. Are you ready to take control of your shoulder? Schedule a consultation today and let’s get started.