Right Shoulder Pain

[jsgolfer]

So after reading some of the others with shoulder problems (specifically rotator cuff). my right shoulder had been sore for about a week, thought it was just from over playing (maybe it was playing in the cold and wind at Stoneleigh with @DaveP043 and others, )

Went to doctor yesterday and luckily it appears that it was only inflammation of the bursa sac.  A cortisone shot to my shoulder and a couple of days of rest is all that it requires.  Whew!!!!  

[saevel25]

The shoulder is a joint that, knock on wood, has not bothered me. 

[iacas]

3 hours ago, jsgolfer said:

Went to doctor yesterday and luckily it appears that it was only inflammation of the bursa sac.  A cortisone shot to my shoulder and a couple of days of rest is all that it requires.  Whew!!!!  

What kind of doctor did you go to? Just your GP?

[jsgolfer]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

What kind of doctor did you go to? Just your GP?

No, I went to the Orthopedic Surgeon I saw for my hip back in 2014.  

Dr. Melissa Yadao - she is really good

http://www.greatermetroortho.com/orthopaedic-doctors/dr-melissa-a-yadao.html

[iacas]

46 minutes ago, jsgolfer said:

No, I went to the Orthopedic Surgeon I saw for my hip back in 2014.  

Dr. Melissa Yadao - she is really good

http://www.greatermetroortho.com/orthopaedic-doctors/dr-melissa-a-yadao.html

Okay. I'm still annoyed by this neck or shoulder thing and really should make an appointment. PT didn't seem to work.

[Golfingdad]

5 hours ago, saevel25 said:

The shoulder is a joint that, knock on wood, has not bothered me. 

Don't knock too hard though ... you might injure your shoulder.

[jsgolfer]

5 minutes ago, iacas said:

Okay. I'm still annoyed by this neck or shoulder thing and really should make an appointment. PT didn't seem to work.

Yeah, I have some friends who also tried the PT for their shoulder and the cortisone shot was only thing that helped them.

[iacas]

45 minutes ago, jsgolfer said:

Yeah, I have some friends who also tried the PT for their shoulder and the cortisone shot was only thing that helped them.

I thought cortisone was one of those things where it's mostly to stop pain temporarily, not to heal something over time.

Long story short, an asshat laid me out in soccer (blind side, astroturf type field, it was HARD and since I didn't know it was coming, I couldn't tumble/roll). My shoulder hurt for a week, so I slept funny, and ever since my neck has hurt on that side. Sometimes it feels lower, sometimes it feels higher (never really above the base of my neck). That was last June. Lately my radial nerve has felt odd. I get tingling in my left thumb now and then.

It's never been so annoying as to rise above "annoying" but since it's been almost a freaking year now… I'm wondering if there's not something structurally wrong, and that it's not just muscular. Anyway, that's all OT, so I'm stopping now.

[ppine]

Shoulders and knees are the worst. I had a bad right shoulder for years.  

The best thing for it is light weights like 2-5 pounds emphasizing range of motion.  Eat fish oil and condrotin.  Get a hot tub.Stay busy,.

[boogielicious]

17 hours ago, iacas said:

I thought cortisone was one of those things where it's mostly to stop pain temporarily, not to heal something over time.

Long story short, an asshat laid me out in soccer (blind side, astroturf type field, it was HARD and since I didn't know it was coming, I couldn't tumble/roll). My shoulder hurt for a week, so I slept funny, and ever since my neck has hurt on that side. Sometimes it feels lower, sometimes it feels higher (never really above the base of my neck). That was last June. Lately my radial nerve has felt odd. I get tingling in my left thumb now and then.

It's never been so annoying as to rise above "annoying" but since it's been almost a freaking year now… I'm wondering if there's not something structurally wrong, and that it's not just muscular. Anyway, that's all OT, so I'm stopping now.

Cortisone is a strong anti-inflammatory. It is used to obviously reduce inflammation, which can inhibit blood flow and healing.

You may have lingering inflammation from daily activity that affects the injury site, just like the OP. It could even be pitching the nerve, which could cause tingling. Ice is a great after activity treatment, even if you don't feel pain. And cycling with heat can speed up healing and loosen tight muscles in the area.

Your body has a build in defense system that will fire or weaken support muscles in response to pain. The muscles around injured areas can often feel just a bad or tight. 

[iacas]

2 hours ago, boogielicious said:

Cortisone is a strong anti-inflammatory. It is used to obviously reduce inflammation, which can inhibit blood flow and healing.

You may have lingering inflammation from daily activity that affects the injury site, just like the OP. It could even be pitching the nerve, which could cause tingling. Ice is a great after activity treatment, even if you don't feel pain. And cycling with heat can speed up healing and loosen tight muscles in the area.

Your body has a build in defense system that will fire or weaken support muscles in response to pain. The muscles around injured areas can often feel just a bad or tight. 

Yeah, well, that's what I'm thinking. It's my neck so "activity" is anything but sitting in a chair or sleeping, and even sleeping can put the neck/shoulders in awkward positions. Sometimes I wake up feeling better than others. Sometimes after sitting in a chair for a long time (often at night) it starts to feel better. The more I move around and try to stretch things out, the worse it feels. I often only somewhat joke that I should buy and wear a neck brace for a few days and it'd probably fix itself.

But it hasn't in many months, so…

And it feels like it's just deep enough that I don't know if heat or cold really reaches it very well.

[SavvySwede]

The "thrower's 10" set of exercises is great for the shoulder. If you are tight in the back of the shoulder the best thing to do is the "sleeper's stretch". I had some tendinitis in my shoulder from  tennis and as much exercise as I did for it, it didn't really loosen up until the trainer showed me that stretch.

http://www.muhlenberg.edu/pdf/main/athletics/athletic_training/throwers10.pdf

[iacas]

On 4/15/2016 at 2:56 PM, iacas said:

I thought cortisone was one of those things where it's mostly to stop pain temporarily, not to heal something over time.

Long story short, an asshat laid me out in soccer (blind side, astroturf type field, it was HARD and since I didn't know it was coming, I couldn't tumble/roll). My shoulder hurt for a week, so I slept funny, and ever since my neck has hurt on that side. Sometimes it feels lower, sometimes it feels higher (never really above the base of my neck). That was last June. Lately my radial nerve has felt odd. I get tingling in my left thumb now and then.

It's never been so annoying as to rise above "annoying" but since it's been almost a freaking year now… I'm wondering if there's not something structurally wrong, and that it's not just muscular. Anyway, that's all OT, so I'm stopping now.

Latest update. The tingling lasted through January. I went to see a sports med doc. He sent me to get an EMG to see if the nerve was being pinched or was otherwise damaged/impaired coming out of the foramen, maybe a small bone chip or something.

The EMG came back normally but it was odd because after about nine months of the tingling it mostly went away starting in January. The things I could do to make it tingle don't make it tingle anymore.

So the pain in my left shoulder has lately been about halfway between my neck and the proximal part of my shoulder, in the trapezius, so he gave me a cortisone shot. He said it may be a "trigger point" which basically means that the muscle is irritated, and my motions and stretching and whatever further irritates, so it's just a vicious cycle that never ends. He thinks the cortisone shot may let it settle down enough to the point where it can not be irritated anymore.

It feels as good today (24 hours later) as it has in the past 18 months. I'm still moving my neck around a little, but far less so, and some of that is likely just a bit of habit.

[woodzie264]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

Latest update. The tingling lasted through January. I went to see a sports med doc. He sent me to get an EMG to see if the nerve was being pinched or was otherwise damaged/impaired coming out of the foramen, maybe a small bone chip or something.

The EMG came back normally but it was odd because after about nine months of the tingling it mostly went away starting in January. The things I could do to make it tingle don't make it tingle anymore.

So the pain in my left shoulder has lately been about halfway between my neck and the proximal part of my shoulder, in the trapezius, so he gave me a cortisone shot. He said it may be a "trigger point" which basically means that the muscle is irritated, and my motions and stretching and whatever further irritates, so it's just a vicious cycle that never ends. He thinks the cortisone shot may let it settle down enough to the point where it can not be irritated anymore.

It feels as good today (24 hours later) as it has in the past 18 months. I'm still moving my neck around a little, but far less so, and some of that is likely just a bit of habit.

Glad to hear the EMG was NEG and that your shoulder pain improved from the trigger point injection. In addition to being therapeutic, we use injections for diagnostic purposes as well. If we give you a local injection in the trigger point, and it resolves your sx's, that helpful information.

Moving forward, if the pain/trigger point happens to recur in the same area, it could of course be a postural issue, but some folks get that specific trigger point from some frying/partial tearing of the supraspinatus tendon. Even though the issue is in the subacromial space, often the muscle belly decides to knot up because it isn't happy. Just something to keep in the back of your mind. I'm sure it'll be fine though!

[iacas]

1 hour ago, woodzie264 said:

Moving forward, if the pain/trigger point happens to recur in the same area, it could of course be a postural issue, but some folks get that specific trigger point from some frying/partial tearing of the supraspinatus tendon. Even though the issue is in the subacromial space, often the muscle belly decides to knot up because it isn't happy. Just something to keep in the back of your mind. I'm sure it'll be fine though!

Yeah, I'm rating that as highly unlikely since it followed a traumatic injury, and doesn't present itself - ever - on my right side.

It's not risen above a 1-2 on the pain chart. It's just a daily annoyance.

[woodzie264]

14 minutes ago, iacas said:

Yeah, I'm rating that as highly unlikely since it followed a traumatic injury, and doesn't present itself - ever - on my right side.

It's not risen above a 1-2 on the pain chart. It's just a daily annoyance.

Oh sure...the odds are it's not...but we definitely have people with recurrent trigger/motor points in the upper traps/suprascapular fossa and the underlying issue is a RCT, whether it was traumatic or degenerative. My point was only that some people do great after an injection for 6-8 months and when their sx's return, they just want another shot. I would just encourage further workup is all. But this is all a moot point since this will take care of it !

[iacas]

16 minutes ago, woodzie264 said:

Oh sure...the odds are it's not...but we definitely have people with recurrent trigger/motor points in the upper traps/suprascapular fossa and the underlying issue is a RCT, whether it was traumatic or degenerative. My point was only that some people do great after an injection for 6-8 months and when their sx's return, they just want another shot. I would just encourage further workup is all. But this is all a moot point since this will take care of it !

If it recurs, I'll definitely look into something else. I don't want to get any more shots. I don't want to be on a twice yearly regimen. I go back in two months.

[saevel25]

8 hours ago, iacas said:

which basically means that the muscle is irritated, and my motions and stretching and whatever further irritates, so it's just a vicious cycle that never ends.

I had this type of issue before where stretching my neck a certain way pulled an area of my back and would cause it to flare up for a day to a few weeks. It seems the best thing for me would be to try to not stretch at all. Yet the only thing I wanted to do was stretch my neck to the side. 

I guess I got lucky because after a while it just went away for me. If I do stretch my neck too much to the left I can feel that area in my middle to middle upper back start to get irritated.