Acupuncture for Shoulder Pain

Shoulder pain can be felt just like achy, unbearable even without any movement and the harshest when it deprives you from sleeping. Thus, in our clinic we encourage patients have a treatment as soon as they feel any discomfort or achiness in shoulder. Shoulder problems are not limited by having pain but by decreasing range of motion. The longer a person ignoring achy shoulder, the worst outcome will arise. Mobility of the shoulder is crucial not only for playing sports, but for daily normal life activities.

Shoulder Pain Cause

• Bursitis
• Tendonitis
• Rotator cuff tendon tear
• Arthritis
• Fracture

Bursitis

Bursa is a small sac filled with fluid, called synovial fluid, located in a joint between bone and soft tissues to reduce the friction between the muscles and the bone. Bursitis is an inflammation of the bursa and can be induced by excessive use or instability of the shoulder resulting in swell of the bursa between the rotator cuff and the acromion bone.

Sometimes, excessive use of the shoulder leads to inflammation and swelling of the bursa between the rotator cuff muscles and acromion, part of the scapula consequently resulting in subacromial bursitis.

Due to bursitis flaring up the inflammation spreads to surrounding areas and engages rotator cuff tendons that is resulting in rotator cuff tendinitis. The massive inflammation of shoulder muscle tissues becomes annoyingly achy or painful. This condition affects daily activities, simple as getting dressed or locking car safety belt.

Acupuncturist is always addressing bursa inflammation and pain together with treating the cause that could be related with organs that are malfunctioned due to poor eating and resting habits. The sooner you come for acupuncture care, the sooner your condition will be improved.

Tendinitis

A tendon is an extremely strong connective tissue which originates at the end of muscle and connects the muscle to the bone. According to Oriental medicine, the strength and flexibility of the tendon depends on liver function. When liver is weak and malfunctions, the tendon is not in its best condition and it can be easily traumatized or inflamed due to overuse. Acupuncture treatment for patients having tendinitis is always based on eliminating the inflammation and pain as well as strengthening the liver function. There are two types of tendinitis – acute and chronic.

Acute tendinitis usually happens with injury like falling, getting heavy blow or trauma due to heavily overuse of the arm and shoulder. If addressed quickly with a proper acupuncture treatment, the inflammation can subside quickly, healed and forgotten.
If It’s not properly aided sooner, it can become chronic and will flair up from time to time reminding you about its existence. In 30 plus days it becomes chronic condition that makes acupuncture practitioner to put more effort and you have twice more treatments than when it was just initiated. You merely need 3 -4 acupuncture treatments to heal acute condition of the injured tendon.

Chronic tendonitis is a consequence of not properly treated acute injury or trauma leaving multiple scar tissues and stagnated hematomas, arthritis or repetitive wear and tear. Rotator cuff tendons are prone to tendinitis which badly affects the shoulder and glenohumeral joint function making all surrounding muscles inflammation and pain decreasing shoulder motion and stability. As the state of disharmony is already chronic, you will need up to 10 treatments to let your old tendinitis to heal totally.

Rotator Cuff Tendon Tears

Often patients come to our clinic with complaint on rotator cuff tendons tear. It is very common that they don’t know if the tear is partial or full.

If the tear is partial, acupuncture treatment is the best solution that can help in healing inflammation and assist the full restoration of the connective tissues to serve your bodily needs as quicker than any other healing methods.

If the tear is complete, there is only one way to repair – surgical operation – and then acupuncture can be the best choice to rehabilitate the post-surgical condition up to the perfect healthy state as quick as possible.

Arthritis

Shoulder pain can also result from osteoarthritis occurred in glenohumeral joint. This type of arthritis is known as “wear and tear” arthritis. Osteoarthritis develops slowly and the pain it causes worsens over time. Another cause of osteoarthritis could be sports or work injuries. The symptoms are inflammation, swelling and muscle tightness.

Often people limit shoulder movements trying to protect shoulder from endurance to avoid the pain. The consequences of such actions affect the joint lining and resulting in limited range of motion, so-called frozen shoulder, totally dysfunctional shoulder and arm.

Osteoarthritis is one of the common health problems acupuncture helps. Acupuncturist will address the joint needs, eliminate the inflammation and pain in parallel also will address the organs involved in feeding the inflammation and strengthen or balance immune system to speed up health restoration.

Fracture

Shoulder fractures might involve the clavicle – collarbone and humerus – the upper arm bone. The complication usually happens when the fracture occurs close to armpit and applying the cast is impossible. The causes are fall, sport or work injury or motor vehicle accident.

Shoulder fractures in older patients are often the result of a fall from standing height. In younger patients, shoulder fractures are often caused by a high energy injury, such as a motor vehicle accident or contact sports injury. Fractures often cause severe pain, swelling, and bruising in a sight of injured part of the shoulder.

Acupuncture is amazingly helpful to reduce pain as soon as possible. There are specific acupoints on the shoulder and arm that help to reduce inflammation and swelling. We have in our arsenal great experience of how to restore shoulder health, function and normalize range of motion in pretty short period of time.

Clinical Relevance

Acupuncture treatment always was and is the best natural healing method that allows body to heal from inside. It is absolutely safe and painless experience you should choose when you feel any ache, pain or discomfort. To understand this clearly you can educate yourself by reading page 1-18 in my book, Your MindBody Alliance & The Truth About Acupuncture.

Our clinical experience shows that people who are not educated in anatomy and physiology are not aware of how to preserve their health. The lack of knowledge and understanding how mind and body correlate leads people to feel out of control over their own health. Reading this book everyone becomes knowledgeable enough to withstand any body health problem and preserve one’s health.

You can find the book in a paper cover or electronic version here:
https://www.amazon.ca/MindBody-Alliance-Truth-About-Acupuncture/dp/1483498034