Shoulder pain can impact people of all ages, sports and body types, and unfortunately the pain can last for months and years if not managed appropriately.
Your shoulder is a highly mobile joint made up of a ball (the top of the arm bone) and a socket (the end of the shoulder blade). Ligaments, tendons, muscles, labrum and bursa all lie close to one another and can be easily irritated or damaged if it is moved or has been moving incorrectly. Diagnosing what structure is damaged or irritated is only part of the solution. Understanding the underlying cause to your shoulder dysfunction is arguably just as important as the diagnosis as your shoulder pain will likely keep coming back again and again until this is addressed.
It is decided on a case by case basis as to whether you will require scans. Whether the injury is from trauma or overuse, how long you have had the pain for, where and what type of pain you experience all influence our decision to refer for a scan.
There is no cookbook approach to fixing shoulder pain as each shoulder pain will present with different underlying causes. This means that each rehabilitation process will require individual variations to achieve the best and fastest outcomes. After thorough questioning and physiotherapy assessment we will establish treatment goals and rehab aims specific to your shoulder pain and develop a management strategy that works for you. It will usually involve some manual hands on therapy and a progression of different exercises to get you back to your sport sooner.
