We all have had shoulder pain. Most of us build up a tolerance; before we know it, we can barely move our shoulder or arm. But what can we do to prevent it from getting that bad? What can we do to prevent being in pain in the first place? Some take pain medications and anti-inflammatories. That is usually the easiest way to get through the day but does not typically resolve the underlying cause. More importantly, what do you do if the medications don’t take away all or some of the pain? What if you’ve been taking them for so long that they don’t do much, if anything, anymore? But what if you don’t like taking medications and still need to get through your day?
Some more natural options that can help your unique situation and be more proactive in managing your pain are rest, ice, heat, and stretching. Using Eastern medicine to help would be: getting a massage, having a posture and pain assessment, along with manual muscle testing, receiving chiropractic care, and trying acupuncture. All of these things are helpful in pain management. As a bonus, they work well together and complement each other, and combining these modalities can have long-lasting results and actually address the underlying problem!
How do you know where to start? Reaching out to a trusted healthcare professional and just having a phone conversation can be enlightening. The more descriptive you can be, the better we can help! If you don’t know how to describe your pain or what you’re feeling, your trusted healthcare professional can ask more detailed questions to help both of you in the steps moving forward.
Here are just two small synopses’ of the more common shoulder injuries we hear of regularly:
Pinched Nerves: Have you ever had numbness or tingling, weakness or dropping things, pins and needles – like your arm is falling asleep, or electrical “jolts”? These are signs of a pinched nerve or the start of one. Pinched nerves are usually (not always) pinched by tight muscles, because when a muscle gets tight, and a nerve runs through it, the nerve gets impinged. For example, thoracic outlet syndrome (TOS) involves a bundle of nerves and blood vessels that are compressed. A pinched nerve in the cervical or thoracic region can send those symptoms down your arm, even to your hand and fingers. Loosening up the muscle to help ease the compression of the nerve and blood vessels and decrease the inflammation would be the starting point. Doing that would include at-home self-care, such as heat, ice, and stretching, and, with your trusted healthcare professional, getting a massage, posture and pain assessment, and getting chiropractic care (separate from what is covered under a massage therapist’s licensing).
Frozen shoulder: I’m sure you’ve heard the term “frozen shoulder” – also known as adhesive capsulitis – but what is it? It’s the thickening and tightening of the capsule around the shoulder joint, making it harder to move, where the limited range of motion, increased pain, and prolonged time of symptoms will determine the level or degree of “freezing or frozen” shoulder. Great news! Massage therapy can help restore movement, increase your range of motion, decrease your pain, and elevate your mood (because, let’s face it, when we’re in pain, we’re not always pleasant).
Finding a massage therapist specializing in getting to the root cause of the pain problem is key to getting the results you seek. Having a massage therapist with hands-on experience in how to help best when you need it most and educating you on being self-aware through your treatment can help your results last longer! When you are self-aware of your posture and the cause of the pain, you can prevent it from happening or progressing.