Prolotherapy for Chronic Shoulder Pain

It’s easy to take your own body for granted when your body is working well. But when a part of your body, such as your shoulder, begins to hurt or hurts for an extended period of time, you quickly realize how much you depend on your shoulders for reaching, raising your arm, lifting yourself up or even just opening a cupboard. That’s why so many people with shoulder pain or injuries look to Prolotherapy for chronic shoulder pain treatment.

Causes of Shoulder Pain

The muscles and joints of the shoulder allow it to move through a remarkable range of motion, making it one of the most mobile joints in the human body. The shoulder can rotate, be raised in front of and behind the torso and allow the arm to move a full 360°. This tremendous range of motion also makes the shoulder extremely unstable, and far more prone to dislocation and injury than other joints.

Because the rounded head or ball of the upper arm bone (humerus) is larger than the socket of the shoulder bone (scapula), this area is especially susceptible to injury. The shoulder joint consists of bones, muscles and ligaments that are all subject to stress and overuse.

Common causes of shoulder pain can be:

• Tendonitis
• Bursitis
• Dislocation and attendant injury
• Impingement syndrome
• Rotator cuff tear
• Adhesive capsulated (frozen shoulder)
• Fracture
• Poor posture.

But the most common cause of chronic pain in the shoulder is arthritis. This can take many forms such as: osteoarthritis, rheumatoid, traumatic, and gouty arthritis.

Which Kind of Shoulder Pain Do You Have?

If you are experiencing pain from a rotator cuff injury, you will feel a dull aching pain, which worsens with movement.  A rotator cuff injury includes any type of irritation or damage to your rotator cuff muscles or tendons. Causes of a rotator cuff injury may include falling, lifting and repetitive arm activities — especially those done overhead.

Shoulder tendonitis can produce symptoms including a slow onset of discomfort, pain in the upper third of your arm and difficulty sleeping on the side of that arm.

Redness and swelling that is tender and warm to the touch can be caused by bursitis.

Minor shoulder pain, ‘clicking’, ‘giving way’, or frozen shoulder, are symptoms of arthritis. Osteoarthritis can begin as early as thirty, but symptoms can appear later, as the condition progresses.

How Prolotherapy Is Used To Treat Chronic Shoulder Pain

Many patients come to us tired of ‘managing’ their chronic pain with NSAID or narcotic medications, various therapies, and exercises. In many cases, these methods do not remove the cause of the pain.

Dr. Fields may be able to treat your chronic pain with prolotherapy. It just depends on the cause of your particular pain.

Most of the time, musculoskeletal pain is due to weakness in the ligaments, tendons and possibly cartilage. Prolotherapy can regenerate these damaged tissues and ultimately alleviate the problem causing the pain.

Prolotherapy works because it stimulates an inflammatory reaction in the body. Solutions are injected into the affected shoulder  ligaments, tendons, or joints, which leads to local inflammation in that specific area. The localized inflammation triggers the deposition of new collagen, the material in which ligaments and tendons are made. New collagen shrinks as it matures and tightens the ligament that was injected, making it stronger.

Are you a Candidate For Prolotherapy for Chronic Shoulder Pain?

Our goal at OrthoRegen® is for our patients to have an active, healthy, pain-free life. Prolotherapy is a very safe, affordable option that allows you to keep working, training and living a normal life during the recovery process. Prolotherapy for chronic shoulder pain is one of the few treatments that encourages movement post-treatment. Movement actually aids the healing process after Prolotherapy. By contrast, shoulder surgery requires you reduce activity after treatment.

Are you a candidate for Prolotherapy for your chronic shoulder pain? Would you like a second opinion before you have irreversible shoulder surgery? The only way to know for sure is to get a consultation. Contact Us today for a consultation or call Dr. Fields at  310-453-1234.