Everyone experiences shoulder pain at some point in their lives. But knowing how the shoulder operates and the parts of the shoulder that may be causing it can help you decide whether you need to seek treatment for your shoulder pain.
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Physical Structure of the Shoulder
Your shoulder is composed of three bones that are all connected to provide the strength and freedom of movement your shoulder has.
The humerus is your upper arm bone. Your shoulder blade, which you can feel on your back beneath your skin, is called the scapula. And your collarbone that runs outward from your neck to the tip of your shoulder is called the clavicle. Your clavicle serves to provide added strength to the tip of your shoulder.
The top of your humerus forms a knob. This knob fits into a socket at the edge of your scapula, and the socket is called the glenoid. The glenoid is surrounded by muscles and tendons that anchor the humerus into the glenoid and allow it to experience a normal range of motion in your arm.
Causes of Shoulder Pain
Most pain is caused by inflammation. The muscle and tendons surrounding the glenoid can become inflamed when they are strained too far from their normal range of motion, stretched too far, or burdened with too much weight. These tendons and muscles can extend quite a ways from your shoulder. And the pain you’re experiencing can sometimes seem like a problem in your neck.
Other causes of shoulder pain are damage to these muscles and tendons other than inflammation, tension around the neck and shoulder, and damage to the bones and cartilage in your shoulder.
All of these causes of shoulder pain require treatment by a physiotherapist to ease your pain, reduce swelling and inflammation, and restore your natural range of motion.
Types of Shoulder Injuries
Many people have a good idea of the reason for their shoulder pain and can explain to the physiotherapist exactly how the problem occurred. Some common occurrences that can lead to shoulder pain are:
- Age
- Contact Sports
- Falls
- Job-Related Injury
- Heavy Lifting
- Overhead Motions
- Sudden Tugs
If any of these activities lead to shoulder pain, you should immediately stop the activity to prevent further damage and make an appointment with a qualified physiotherapist. You can’t just ignore shoulder pain and hope it goes away. The pain is an alarm bell telling you that something is wrong.
The physiotherapist will first ease your pain by using ultrasound, lasers and shockwave machines so you can relax. Once your pain is eased, they can use clinical massage to loosen and improve the mobility of problem muscles, tendons or the shoulder joint.
The next step is to slowly increase your range of motion to what it was before the injury. And the final step is to prescribe exercises and teach you how to avoid reinjury,
If you’re suddenly experiencing pain and you’re in Bangkok, make an appointment with Bangkok Physiotherapy Center. The staff at BPC have the experience and qualifications to quickly start you on the road back to a healthy shoulder.