Causes Of Shoulder Discomfort

Shoulder Discomfort

In this video, chiropractor Dr. Troy Dreiling talks about shoulder discomfort.

To set up a free consultation at Zenaptic Chiropractic, please call (360) 260 – 6903.


Video Transcription

Hello, it’s Dr. Troy here, the Vancouver chiropractor.

I want to talk about shoulder discomfort, a very common complaint now with people’s sedentary lifestyles, a lot of sitting, a lot of driving, a lot of computer work, a lot of TV work, then you’ve got the texting of the neck. [Bends next forward and does testing motion]

So, if you look at the biomechanics of the cervical spine, the spine is like the frame. So your shoulders that come off in this region and your legs and come up down in your low back, those are like the front tires, if you will, of the shoulder region and then the rear tires would be your low back.

So, if the frame is in alignment, then the tires are going to roll properly. They’re going to turn properly. So with our sedentary lifestyles and the things that we do, the traumas that we have and the things that we ignore, a lot of times what’s going to happen is we’re going to develop this forward head shift.

The heads going to go forward and for every inch you go forward, you’re going to put an extra 20 pounds of pressure on the spinal cord, the brainstem and nerve roots. Those nerve roots send messages to, not only your organs but the muscles that control your shoulder girdle and neck.

Imagine this. If I tip my head up and externally rotate, [tilts head backward] that would be a great stretch to do. But here’s what happens. We start going forward. Your shoulders are going to naturally want to internally rotate. It’s going to contract the posterior muscles of the back of the shoulder. So now you get shoulder dysfunction.

How do we clear that? What are some of the signs, too?

First, you can get shoulder pain, where you can’t lift your shoulder up, also known as frozen shoulder. You might have limited ranges of motion, “I can’t turn this or hurts when I when I lift this certain way.” That’s actually happened to me. When I was in high school, I couldn’t lift the milk out of the fridge because my shoulder hurt so bad. A chiropractor actually corrected the problem. It was mostly coming from my spine, so I had loss of joint integrity and movement in my spine. It was affecting the functionality of my shoulder. So, that’s one of the things I’m very, very familiar with – how to help shoulders get better.

One of the things that we do,is we do an examination to see where is the shoulder problem coming from. Is it coming from the joints in the neck or the glenohumeral joint, where it has restricted movement? Especially if you have had trauma in the past that can create scar tissue. So, we evaluate you. We x-ray to see if there’s any misalignment. Also there could be complicating factors such as degenerative disc disease, arthritis; you could have disc issues. So these are all things that could predispose you to chronic long-term problems. Addressing those before they turn into a big mess is always recommended. But even if you’re in a big mess, there’s a lot of help that we can provide. If in fact the joints are out of alignment, that is something we specialize in, getting people better, getting them out of pain as quick as we can.

If you’re interested get a free consultation for watching this video. Dr. Troy 360 260 6903 is my number. Come see us at Zenaptic Chiropractic. We’re happy to serve you!