Shoulder Pain

                                           Brachial Plexus Impingement and Subscapularus Spasm

WOW!

Try to say that ten times fast!  Let me interpret that for you…you know that pain you feel that goes down the back of your arm and/or sits right under your shoulder blade and sometimes goes up into your neck?

That’s what I’m talking about!

I have had several people come in this last two weeks with this problem.  As you can see from the photo, there is a bundle of nerves on either side of your neck that live between some little muscles called Scalenes.  If Scalenes get tight they can pinch those nerves or if you have been swimming, throwing, pushing or pulling heavy things or slouching at your desk, (as I just caught myself doing), the muscle underneath your shoulder blade gets tight and can squeeze that nerve too.

This is also an injury that can happen at birth when a babies shoulders are compressed coming out of the mother.  It can also happen as a football injury or in auto accidents when the shoulder is hit hard from the front or side.

This is when you come to me and say, “Ouch!  It hurts on the back of my shoulder and down my arm”.  I even had one guy that was scheduled for Carpal Tunnel surgery talk to me and with about 15 minutes of Trigger Point, the pain and tingling went away and he cancelled his surgery…WHEW!

So when you make these body parts angry, what can you do to appease the muscle gods and make the pain go away?

STRETCH!

You’ve heard me talk about “grabbing a wall” and that is what it is literally.  Take your hand and place it flat on the wall with fingers facing behind you.  Keep the arm straight and turn slowly away from your hand.  You will feel stretching of your chest muscles and this will help relax the muscles of the back and open space between ribs and shoulder blades.  I demonstrate this stretch here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jEQb1cg4Uw

You can also place your hands on either side of a doorway, just a little higher than your head and slowly move forward.  This will stretch chest muscles and open up the space between shoulder blades and ribs too.

Treatment for this is Trigger Point done around the scapula and is a specialty of mine, as some of you have experienced and I can help release the pain.  It isn’t comfortable, but the treatment is VERY affective!

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