Can You Raise Your Arms Without Shoulder Pain?

Can your biceps touch your ears without pain?

If the answer is no, then this increases your odds of chronic shoulder pain. Some of you reading may already be experiencing shoulder pain.

We all know someone with shoulder pain that talks about their "bad shoulder" or that they can't do a certain activity because of t pain.

The traditional treatments and exercises for shoulder pain are appalling.

Most primary care and orthopedic docs start with medications and injections. Well, anyone that's paying attention knows that you can't fix a mechanical problem with a chemical. The pain may subside temporarily but it will return with a vengeance! It's well stated in the research that chronic use of NSAIDs (ibuprofen, motrin, Advil, naproxen, meloxicam, mobic, etc.) and steroid injections increase the speed and severity of degeneration!

It's smart to acknowledge the actual problem and not mask the symptoms with chemical "solutions".

So you get shunted off to PT--usually within the same medical group. Then there's a lot of exercises, stretches, kinesiotape, Graston, rubbing, ART, ice/heat, e-stim, ultrasound, etc. It seems like it's a shot gun approach hoping it gets better. Because at this point all they are telling you it's just "arthritis", or "impingement", or "frozen shoulder", or "bursitis". This list of generic labels is too long to mention.

Next, you try your local chiropractor who tries adjustments to your spine and maybe the shoulder, may implement supplements or diets, and may even use some of the same methods your last PT tried all to no avail.

To be clear, I don't fault the individual providers that are doing what they're trained to do.

No one learns how to find or fix fibrous adhesion in school. No one learns how to directly treat degeneration/arthritis without surgery or injections. Even the training for which exercises and stretches to use is contradicting. On top of that, insurance companies are 30 years behind and reimburse providers to keep using out-dated and ineffective treatments (ice, electrical stem, etc.).

And at the end of the day a lot of people still have shoulder pain and limited range of motion.

They get frustrated and quit looking for help from health care professionals. They give up on their dreams of being active and quit favorite sports, hobbies, or games with their kids. On the other hand, some push through the pain for as long as they can until they end up damaging their shoulder even further. These are both dangerous trajectories to be on.

If raising your arm towards your head hurts, it is time to get it checked by one of our specialists.