Using Physical Therapy for Drug-Free Relief of Shoulder Pain

Many people reach for painkillers to dull shoulder pain or discomfort. But physical therapy offers a better long-term solution that can handle the cause of shoulder pain to alleviate your symptoms. My name is Dr. Nicholas Trameri, and I’m a physical therapist at Full Potential Physical Therapy in Holland, Michigan. Today we’re going to talk about how physical therapy can be used for drug-free relief of shoulder pain. 

How Does the Shoulder Work?

The shoulder is a complex joint made up of three bones: our humerus, clavicle, and shoulder blade. Connected to these three bones are over 20 different muscles that are responsible for the various different activities that our shoulder is able to perform, such as reaching up and overhead, reaching across our body, or reaching back and behind us. 

What Can Cause Shoulder Pain?

When these joints and muscles are working well together, we’re able to do all of our daily activities without any difficulty or without any thought. However, if these muscles are not working well together, it can lead to tons of symptoms like: 

• Pain
• Discomfort
• Limited range of motion
• Achiness
• Soreness
• Difficulty sleeping
• And more

I often like to compare our shoulder joint to a symphony in the sense that, when all these muscles are working well together and doing their correct job, it moves beautifully. There is no limitation, and we are able to do everything that we need to do. However, similar to a symphony, if even just a few muscles or instruments are not working how they’re supposed to, it can lead to a poor product. 

How Physical Therapy Can Alleviate Shoulder Pain

Through a physical therapy evaluation, we can determine range of motion deficits, strength deficits, and movement impairments that could be leading to your symptoms and your pain. After that, our goal is to hone in on these individual impairments and address them in ways to relieve your pain, improve your range of motion, improve your strength, and get you back to doing anything and everything that you need to do functionally. 

On top of that, our goal through physical therapy is to help educate the individual on how to avoid these certain situations so that future pain and issues can be avoided no matter your activity level. Physical therapy can be helpful to identify these impairments and improve them so that shoulder pain does not become a long-term or lasting issue for you. 

Call Full Potential for a Consultation

If you are dealing with shoulder pain, give us a call today at (616) 537-2837 to schedule an appointment. We’d be happy to help address your shoulder pain and get you back to your full potential.