Shoulder pain is so common all around the world. There are at least 20% of people all around the world who suffer shoulder pain at some stage of their life. However, the ratio of older people with chronic shoulder pain is higher than youngsters. This is because after a specific time in life bones start losing calcium which weakens the bones and muscles start paining a lot. There are various causes of shoulder pain and each cause can be cured with different treatment method. The initial treatment for chronic shoulder pain comprises pain medication and physiotherapy. Doctors also prescribe vitamin D supplements in case the reduction is weakening the bones and causing pain.
Causes of chronic shoulder pain
The medical conditions which can result in chronic pain in the shoulder are glenohumeral osteoarthritis, cuff rotator pathology, and adhesive capsulitis. This issue can also occur due to the acromioclavicular osteoarthritis. Doctors use lab diagnosis to evaluate the exact and accurate cause for the pain and suggest treatments accordingly.
What are the treatments?
The chronic shoulder pain treatments have been categorized into different types including activity modification, medication, injections, physical therapies, and surgical treatments.
Medication
There are medications like opiate medication, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and such; however these treatments provide short term pain relief with no surety of the outcome. Doctors cannot promise of the pain relief or for how long pain will remain in control. There are also risks attached to the pain medication which is why doctors mostly do not prescribe a large dose of these medications.
Physical therapy
There is not any one type of physical therapies which are proving useful for the treatment, in fact, a big large of the therapies are being performed. The pain is being alleviated with the help of heat or ice therapies. Doctors also use ultrasound therapies and hyperthermia as a chronic shoulder pain treatment. If the muscle strain is the reason behind the pain, doctors think strengthening and stretching exercises are the best to cure the pain. It can also help in controlling the intensity of the pain.
Injection
During the chronic shoulder pain treatment, doctors use local anesthetic with the corticosteroid injections. Doctors inject the injections on the damaged area which can be e subacromial space, acromioclavicular joint, or glenohumeral joint. These are the areas which are commonly known to be damaged in case of shoulder pain. It has been observed during many treatments that patients who have adhesive capsulitis are more responsive towards the intra-articular injections and they are a probe to get relief.
Surgical treatment
If the surgeries do not work properly, doctors try to cure the problem with the operative surgery. However, the recovery rate of the patients after the surgeries is very low. Doctors try each and every chronic shoulder pain treatment before going with the surgery.
Nonsurgical shoulder pain treatment
The nonsurgical chronic shoulder pain treatment is based on regenerative medicines based on stem cell therapies and PRP treatment. Surgeons replace the damaged or dead blood cells of the muscle tissues with the active cells or platelets to cure the disease.
To learn more about chronic shoulder pain, please call us on 815-412-6174.