A chronic pain in my shoulder is beginning to constrain my life

Published: 7:00AM GMT 08 March 2010

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My GP believes the pang in my shoulder could be rotator slap tendonitis Photo: ALAMY

Dear Readers" Clinic

I have had a ongoing pang in my right shoulder for 6 months, and it is commencement to constrain my life. I can no longer nap properly, cannot skirt but pain, nor have use of the opening cleaner, expostulate the car, or even hold a newspaper. I used to have an active life, but am right away putting on weight. My thought processes are slowing, too.

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My GP believes it to be rotator slap tendonitis. As I cannot take painkillers such as aspirin or ibuprofen, he gave me a steroid injection to ease the pain, but it done no difference. What on earth can I do?

Mrs R S, Redditch, Worcs

Osteopath Kristian Wood replies:

Dear Mrs R S

The rotator slap is an intensely critical piece of the body: a organisation of muscles and their tendons that give constructional firmness to the tip of the arm. The 4 muscles are the core stabilisers of the shoulder, assisting to lift and stagger the arm, and brace it inside of the joint. However, if the tendons of the rotator slap spin pinched or damaged, inflammation (tendonitis) can occur. The pang can be both agonizing and debilitating, and mostly gets gradually worse.

From your description, it is probable that you are pang from rotator slap tendonitis, as your GP suggests. While it is formidable to give you an correct diagnosis but assessing your shoulder myself, there are alternative probable causes of your pain.

For starters, I consternation if the shoulder pang you are experiencing is essentially entrance from the shoulder area. You were administered an anti-inflammatory steroid injection majority expected in to the supraspinatus, one of the 4 muscles in the rotator slap and something of a common think when it comes to localised pain. Ordinarily, this would move down any inflammation and ease discomfort. That it did not have this outcome suggests to me that possibly the injection did not strike the complaint area or that this tissue is not causing your pain.

A complaint in the neck, caused by corner wear and rip or an harmed intervertebral disc, can strike on the haughtiness root, that in spin can outcome in pang being felt in the shoulder area. Such pang can be so serious that flexing the bend in to a protecting viewpoint is mostly the comfiest one to adopt. Over time, this might outcome in the bicep shortening, creation it formidable for the arm to be straightened usually as you"ve created elsewhere in your letter.

Living with ongoing pang for 6 months will have a knock-on effect, not usually for your shoulder and arm. Your complete physique will be perplexing to find the most appropriate approach to "hold" itself so that your pang is minimised. This might perceptible itself as a curving of the spine, dropping of the shoulder or side-bending of the neck. It is my perspective that these adoptive processes will lead to their own problems and might essentially impede the healing of the strange damage.

It is time for you to find a second opinion. Don"t feel broke about coming your GP for a mention to an osteopath. In cases where no swell is being made, a second perspective is an viewable choice. In my clinic, if a studious is not responding as I would like, I ask a co-worker to take a see to see if I am blank something. This way, we all learn.

A second diagnosis might not grant with your GP"s but in such a unfortunate incident as yours, dual opinions are improved than one. Having tired all probable treatments for rotator slap tendonitis, a opposite take on the complaint might be the initial step in removing you out of this ongoing cycle of pain.

•Contact Kristian Wood at info@kjw-osteopathy.co.uk or revisit kjw-osteopathy.co.uk

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