Where do you start in treating shoulder pain? Elizabeth Tracey reports
Podcast: Download (1.5MB)
Subscribe: RSS
Almost all adults will experience pain in their shoulders at some point. Johns Hopkins head of shoulder surgery Edward McFarland says it’s very simple to start with stretching.
McFarland: When you do have shoulder pain one of the things that shoulders do that's ornery is that they get stiff. If you're having pain you don't want to baby it and you really should start range of motion trying to keep it from getting stiffer because then you end up with two problems. so you really should avoid a sling for pain, maybe use it on a temporary basis at most but you want to keep moving your arms. The good news is for most of us is most of the things we do is we more mature, we do activities below shoulder level and most of those are pretty safe. You can row down low but you can't do a push up so anything up high is really hard on your shoulders. :32
McFarland is a big fan of icing sore joints, noting that anything that doesn’t require a medication but that helps reduce pain is a win-win. He says if your personal preference is for heat that can also be effective as long as you keep at it and are patient. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.