What Causes Shoulder Pain?

More and more patients complain of shoulder pain with difficult or impossible movements in the shoulder joint.

Shoulder pain can sometimes occur gradually, and patients usually take painkillers or place heat on their shoulders.

Often shoulder pain occurs suddenly, acutely, and can be so strong that patients describe it as unbearable, especially at night.

The shoulder area is susceptible to touch, and each arm movement is painful, limited, especially raising the hands to the side.

For some people, the shoulder joint is completely blocked. There are no changes on the skin. The arm is usually found in a typical forced position so that the upper arm is close to the body, and the forearm is bent at the elbow. The pain can spread to the neck and the hand.

What Causes Shoulder Pain?

Many causes can lead to shoulder pain.

The medic will usually ask whether it is a shoulder injury; What is the profession of the patient, and whether the patient is the driver.

Today a very common cause of pain in the shoulder is driving a car with an open window.

Rarely do drivers think about this since the pain does not occur while driving, but the next day or when they come into a warm room.

Driving with the window closed will significantly reduce the number of patients who complain of shoulder pain.

However, What About The Shoulder Pain, Which Arises Without a Clear and Obvious Reason?

What are the causes of such frequent occurrences of the painful shoulder?

The shoulder joint is the most used and the most mobile joint of our body.

These ball and socket joints enable us to move our hands in all directions, and these movements are made every day.

In many professions, working capacity depends on the good mobility of the shoulder joints.

Continuous, often excessive use and abnormal shoulder joint load over time lead to degeneration of tissue.

In the modified (degenerated) tissue may come to cracks or complete disruption of tendons and muscles, changes in the mucous bags that lubricate joints, the articular capsule, and into the bone tissue.

Painful shoulder most often occurs between 40 and 50 years, and for professions as: conductors, violinists, carpenters, painters this can happen much earlier.

Painful shoulder more often happens on the right side.

Similar changes do not happen only due to overload on the shoulder joint but also due to long-term stagnation, such as immobilization of the hand.

Sometimes The Pain in The Shoulder and Hand Can Occur Simultaneously

The difficulties in movement and shoulder pain can also cause changes in the hand. The hand becomes slightly swollen, warm, and painful. Squeezing hands becomes especially difficult and painful.

After this, the swelling can diminish, and the pain will be reduced, which can lead to complete recovery, or lesions can develop, and the hand will become cold, pale with thin skin and stiffen fingers.

This disease is believed to be caused by nerve stimulation (reflexes) that come to the shoulder from distant organs and tissues. Such stimuli act on the blood vessels and cause changes in the blood flow, and thus the tissue nutrition. This may be due to changes in the spine, brain damage, heart disease, Angina pectoris or after myocardial infarction, bone fracture, etc.

The transmission of harmful nerve impulses is interrupted. This is best achieved utilizing some nerve blockade drugs. Injections may be administered in the shoulder joint itself. The medic will prescribe drugs that relieve pain and prevent the development of inflammatory changes.

Painful, warm and swollen shoulder is a sign of acute inflammation.

The skin is swollen, red, and hot. Such changes can occur in rheumatic fever but then usually are also affected by some other joints.

If the inflammation affects only the shoulder joint, then the cause is purulent inflammation that might be а result of purulent diseases in the body or injury.

The general state of the organism is disturbed and regularly accompanied by fever.

Less common is shoulder pain in diseases of other organs. Мore than 80 percent of shoulder pain is a result of changes in the shoulder. In 15 percent of the cases, the pain is reflected from other diseased organs.

Pain in the left shoulder can occur in heart diseases, for example, angina pectoris and myocardial infarction.

The right shoulder usually reflects the pain from the gallbladder.

Many diseases that can affect trough shoulder pain are:

• Nerve inflammation
• Diseases of the stomach
• Pancreas
• Pleura, and
• Appendicitis

Shoulder Pain Treatment

Shoulder pain treatment depends on the severity of the disease.

Milder cases can be treated successfully with anti-inflammatory drugs. Also, heat can be used in hot water bottles, and in some cases, even cold packs can help.

It is important to remember to avoid Self-medication and to visit a medic as soon as possible.