Shoulder pain is a subject that is near and dear to my heart.

When I was fresh out o chiropractic college, I was working out at a local gym and dislocated my left shoulder performing light-weight shoulder presses.  I couldn’t believe it happened.  I wasn’t lifting heavy weights and I thought I was using good form.  At the time, I was terrified!  A shoulder dislocation has the potential to be a career ending injury for a chiropractor.  Luckily, I was able to have surgery and although it still bothers me, I am back to doing almost everything I want to do now. Albeit I do these things more mindfully.

The interesting thing about my shoulder dislocation is that it could have been easily avoided…if I had acted on it back when I was in high school.  When talking with my surgeon, he found that I had degenerative changes in my shoulder from a past injury.  That combined with my FORWARD HEAD POSTURE & UPPER CROSS SYNDROME – postural distortions – I had created the perfect storm for a shoulder dislocation when I put my arm in that specific position.

The take away here is that I had an musculoskeletal injury, that I had ADAPTED TO – rather than healed from, and over time, even though it was painless, the joint complex had degenerated and finally gave way.  Had I known what to do back in the day, I could have gotten the care I needed at the time and that would have allowed it to heal and possibly prevented the degenerative changes that led to my dislocation.

Can Chiropractic Help With Shoulder Pain?

The shoulder is a very complex joint.  I has a lot of mobility in some ways, yet it has a lot of stability in other ways.  There are several structures in the shoulder that can generate pain – the rotator cuff is probably the most well known.  Shoulder bursitis, tendonitis and tenosynovitis are other common diagnoses that are given to shoulder pain symptoms.  When a shoulder is injured like mine was, surgery is often the only course of action that can help the shoulder heal.  However, many of the diagnoses that are given to shoulder pain, as listed above, and including IMPINGEMENT SYNDROMES are (in my opinion) actually symptoms of an underlying disorder.

The underlying disorder that I am referring to is the vertebral subluxation.  Yep, there is that word again.  Why do I think that this can be the root cause for so many shoulder symptoms?  There are two specific reasons.

First

The first is that nerves control the function of  your shoulder.  If there is a vertebral subluxation affecting the nerves that control the shoulder, then the shoulder may malfunction and a common symptom will be pain.

Second

The second is that when a person has a vertebral subluxation in their spine, it also causes POSTURAL DISTORTIONS  and MUSCULAR IMBALANCES.