Avoid the irritating movement
Most often than not, you will find that there are particular movements that results in the shoulder pain. Your aim should be to find the activity that is causing pain and avoid doing it. If it is pushups, lifting weights, or serving tennis, you want to avoid that activity that causes the pain. Activity related pain is like the situation when you have an open wound on the skin.
Every time you scratch over it, the healing scab or the granulation tissue comes off and it becomes fresh. Doing that particular activity that results in pain, is like scratching the healing wound, pulling the scab off and starting all over.
Do I ice the shoulder or put a heating pad on it… Which one to do, and when?
Using Ice decreases the extra swelling that might be accumulating in the area, allowing the tissues to be less pressurized. Our joints only have so much of free space and capacity and if the irritation is causing swelling in the joint, the joint is like a pressurized chamber and it needs to be vented out. Ice does a great job in kicking out all that extra pain producing chemicals that are released out of the cells and results in swelling and pain.
If the pain has been going on for a while (over 3 months) and if there is not much swelling in the area, doing heating pad and hot showers might be beneficial too. After trying to heal the tissues over and over in the initial phase, the body then goes into a stage cause “chronic healing” where it needs more blood circulation and a stimulus for bringing attention to the area that needs to be healed.
Address shoulder movement pattern
Shoulder joint is like a Crane (construction machine). The scapula is the base(strong and sturdy) of the crane, and the arm is like the arm of the crane.
If there is any problem in the base of the crane or the scapula, which means, if it starts to become weak or loose, especially during the movement of the arm, the performance becomes faulty.
The symptom that you will feel is in the shoulder joint and will not allow you to use the arm without pain for lets say, doing a pushup, reaching for something, sleeping on it, or doing weights.
Good news for your shoulder
Most of the conditions on the shoulder are addressable as long as it is looked after early on. Waiting too long may result in too much chronic healing, scabbing and ultimately tearing of the fibers around the joint resulting in damage not addressed by conservative methods. Doctors of Physical Therapy can help you evaluate, diagnose and recommend the best treatment options in the most conservative treatment strategy without pain medications or surgery.