Shoulder pain is very common and can affect us all at some point in our lives. The earliest we would experience shoulder pain is from some sort of trauma such as in a sporting injury or fall onto the shoulder or trying to lift heavy weights that prove to be slightly heavier than expected such as putting a full carry-on bag up into the hold above your seat in a plane or pulling off heavy luggage off the carousel and it jerks your shoulder.
These can lead to strains of the musculature around or in the shoulder and can vary from mild pain and discomfort with limited mobility to severe pain and marked disability.
The initial treatment of these traumatic injuries and strains for the most part are conservative with pain relief in the form of various types of painkillers, rest and icing with gentle mobilization as soon as the pain eases.If the pain persists beyond that, then it would need further investigation and treatment by a health professional most probably an orthopaedic surgeon if the simple measures do not suffice.
Other injuries become more evident with ongoing age, participation in repetitive-type injuries and degenerative-type conditions and these include rotator cuff tendinitis from repetitive strain injuries, calcific tendinitis which is a form of repetitive strain injury, degenerative tears again may be due to overuse with certain sports or certain occupational participation with the use of the upper limb specifically and these will need further investigations usually by an orthopaedic surgeon in terms of x-rays and further soft tissue imaging in the form of ultrasound and MRI scans.
Treatments can include conservative management as previously mentioned with the use of physiotherapy, certain type of injections including depot steroid injections, platelet-rich plasma injections in some instances and may need surgical involvement.
For more information, you can contact us at the Fracture and Orthopaedic Clinic Ltd at 622-2122 and we would be happy to guide you in these matters.