If you’re experiencing shoulder problems or pain and maybe have been for a while, then we can help. Get booked in today.
Shoulders are the third most common area of the body that people report having problems. Shoulder pain can start gradually, other times you might experience a quick onset of pain, it can become so bad it interrupts sleep and makes life hard. Sometimes pain in your shoulder can be resolved relatively quickly, however the longer it is ignored the longer it takes to recover.
The shoulder is a complex of four joints rather than just one; it provides mobility and strength for the upper limb and also needs to provide safe passage of blood vessels and nerves to the hands. Many vital tissues are packed into a small space. If one of these joints is not functioning properly, it can cause pain in the others, and pain can also move further down the arm, creating some confusion. If shoulder pain does not heal on its own, it can quickly become limiting. Many people do not realise they are becoming limited and live within the boundaries their bodies have created. Then when they are required to move outside of these limits, they discover how painful the shoulder can be. Functional tasks such as reaching into cupboards or brushing hair can be very painful.
The shoulder comprises four joints, and they are all different types:
Although you may expect physical workers such as builders to be more affected, that’s not quite the case. Hairdressers and retired people will often make up the greater proportion of people we treat here at the clinic with shoulder pain. People likely live with the pain for quite a while or even have a recurrence before seeking help. A separate condition, which can often be confused with shoulder pain, is “frozen shoulder”; this is marked by extreme pain in the early stages and is easily mistaken for other shoulder problems at this point, but one of the defining characteristics is constant pain. This is a separate issue which we can help with.
Get in touch ›Two really easy things to help your shoulders are posture and breathing. Bearing in mind how vital breathing is to survival, many of us are pretty poor at it. It is very difficult to maintain poor posture if you fully inflate your lungs, so the two are intertwined. Modern life puts everything in a box in front of us, so we let our heads flex forward, and our shoulders slouch. This puts an excessive curve in our upper spine, which makes it difficult for the shoulder blades to glide over the ribcage. This compromises one of the joints, so the others become affected. It may be the proximity to the brain, but long-term shoulder pain can be really hard to recover from and often needs education and exercise to overcome this. A thorough history allows us to work out the best program for you as often the actual pain is just the tip of the iceberg, and some hard work is needed to rehab and future-proof the shoulders.
Got a question? Want to know more about our treatments and classes? Or need to discuss a pain that you just can't get to go away?
Our team are ready to chat to you today to work out the best plan of action to get you back to full strength and fitness.
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