Last Updated Jul 2013
Rotator cuff pain is one of the most incapacitating conditions that can affect any of us. Why is this? Simply because we use our shoulders in almost everything we do. Pain alongside weakness and inflammation are the most common of all the rotator cuff symptoms.
I want to focus on the pain associated with rotator cuff injuries. Just as importantly, I also want to explain how to deal with your pain. In everything, apart from the most severe of cases, pain reduction can be successfully achieved through rotator cuff exercise.
What will you feel?
Pain in the rotator cuff is often very hard to define. It can be described as nothing more than a dull ache. This may be consistent with someone suffering from the early onset of impingement. A condition that, given time, has the capacity to eventually develop into a more serious and more painful full thickness rotator cuff tear.
Pain associated with early onset of impingement is often initially confined to periods of exertion. This is especially so after overhead use of the arm. Left untreated the degree of impingement increases and so will the amount of rotator cuff pain experienced.
The pain will gradually be felt more often and for longer. It will be felt across the front of the shoulder and possibly radiating down the affected arm. If there is inflammation, within the tendons themselves, a burning sensation could be experienced within in the shoulder.
Should a rotator cuff tendon eventually tear you may actually feel a tearing sensation in the shoulder. This, tearing sensation, will be associated with a sharp pain that can be very intense. The pain will be felt, again, across the front of the shoulder and almost certainly down the arm. This pain will be increased on exertion. Lifting the arm away from the body or above head height will be especially painful.
There will also be a weakening of the shoulder associated with impingement, tears, tendonitis and pain. It is possible for pain associated with a straightforward tear to fade away over a period of months. That is not true for the weakness that will remain and increase if left untreated.
What can be done to ease the pain?
This recovery from pain will be greatly speeded up and enhanced with the correct torn rotator cuff treatment and use of exercise. Exercise has the added bonus of reversing any weakness that may have developed.
The most severe rotator cuff pain is reserved for a full thickness tear that also detaches the tendon from the humerus. There will be severe pain, with a sudden onset. This will, gradually lessen over time, but it will still be painful. In the case of a chronic tear, which develops over time, the pain is unlikely to diminish because the process is ongoing.
No matter how severe your pain, a natural, healthy, long term antidote is to be found by using exercise. Whatever your particular symptoms I recommend you find out more at rotator cuff pain.
Steve Kaiser has used exercise to treat his own rotator cuff symptoms. Learn how you could do the same at Rotator Cuff Therapy Exercises.
Click here for more articles by and information on Steve Kaiser.
Therapy professionals, if you enjoy writing or would like to share your expertise and are interested in becoming a PutMeBackTogether contributor, please click here.