Joint pain can be some of the most persistent and, if untreated, some of the most debilitating. There is a wide range of common causes to consider, but each of them also offers solutions that can help you recover or, at the very least, manage the symptoms for the foreseeable. Here are a few of the potential sources of shoulder pain and ways to manage them.
By Team Savant
Image: Pelayo Arbués
Arthritis
By far the most common cause of chronic joint pain is arthritis. This is a family condition that affects a lot of people of all ages, though older people tend to be more prone to it. Symptoms of arthritis in the shoulder include pain, stiffness, and clicking noises. It can often be treated with range-of-motion exercises, as well as the use of anti-inflammatory medication, since arthritis is an inflammation issue, primarily.
Injuries
The first thing to ask yourself is whether or not you might have a shoulder injury. Some of the most common signs of having an injured shoulder include stiffness and pain when you try to move it, a feeling like it could pop out of its socket, and a loss of strength in it. For minor injuries, you may simply need to rest it. However, if it looks deformed, the pain is intense, if it is swelling, or your arm is numb, you need to get it treated ASAP.
Rotator Cuff Tear
This is one form of injury, but a particularly painful kind, where the muscles in the shoulder that let you lift it up tear it, often due to overuse or simple wear and tear over time. This pain can get worse and affect your ability to use your arm, so getting the help of a shoulder surgeon sooner rather than later is often recommended. The longer you leave it, the longer your chance of experience chronic pain for a long time.
Bone Spurs
These painful spurs are tiny growths of bone that usually begin to form after a bout of inflammation, often caused by arthritis or tendonitis. They are growths of bone that can sometimes cause no symptoms whatsoever but, in other cases, can cause pain by irritating the surrounding tissue. There are some tips such as exercises you can take to dissolve bone spurs naturally, but if they are not working, then you may need to have them surgically removed.
Tendonitis
This is a condition that is most often caused by overwork and overexertion. If you repeat the same motion with the shoulder or add too much stress to it, you can start to experience tendon pain that can get worse over time. This typically recovers by itself with some rest, so treating tendonitis if you’re getting to the age where it affects you more often is about learning how to avoid it.
The best way to tackle your shoulder pain depends entirely on the likely source. However, whatever the source might be, it’s certainly true that the sooner you start to get to the bottom of it, the better it’s likely to be for you.