This article will provide you a general overview of a shoulder tendinitis injury and how it can be treated. Simply put, tendinitis is inflammation of the tendons in your shoulder. Let’s dive into the make-up of the shoulder and how tendinitis occurs.

Understanding the muscles and tendons in your shoulder

Let’s start out by talking a little bit about the muscles in your shoulder and how they work. Generally speaking — where muscles attach to bones — they attach to bones through tendons. The terminal end of the muscle itself is a tendon that is attached to the bone.

Like any other body part, the shoulder has several tendons inside of it that are attaching all of the muscles in and around the shoulder to the bones that are located in that same area.

How does shoulder tendinitis occur?

Shoulder tendinitis occurs most commonly during a fall or a car crash. Usually, the shoulder is forced into an awkward position or there is force applied to the shoulder itself. These types of incidences can damage the muscles (strain) or the tendons (sprain).

Everything revolves around the deltoid muscle

The deltoid muscle is the large outside shoulder muscle that attaches all the way up the clavicle (your collarbone). It also attaches to the back side of your shoulder blade. There are also other muscles that are part of your rotator cuff that go underneath the deltoid muscle.

Ligament damage can feel very similar to tendinitis

Don’t forget, there are also ligaments in your shoulder as well. Ligaments simply attach from bone to bone (there are no muscles in between). When you have ligament damage, this can feel a lot like tendinitis. This is because these are soft tissue structures with nerves and blood supply. They can swell up and cause pain that is very similar to tendinitis.

What can your doctor do to help with tendinitis?

The main thing to understand before you see a doctor is that the attachment points of the muscles in your shoulder is strained. This means the muscle is swollen and aggravated. Unfortunately, this will cause a pain cycle. The doctor will try to break that pain cycle. The problem with the pain cycle is that tendinitis causes swelling, which causes pain, which then causes more swelling, and etc.

Your doctor will do whatever it takes to break the pain cycle. Medication therapy and range-of-motion therapy (physical therapy) are the two most common approaches that you doctor will take in an attempt to break this pain cycle. Acupuncture is another option. Acupuncture will alter the nerve response of those nerve areas. This will lessen the brain sensitivity. In other words, the brain will not perceive the pain, and subsequently, will not order the swelling. Again, the goal here is to break up the pain cycle that often comes along with shoulder tendinitis.

Outside of medication therapy and activity management (and sometimes acupuncture), there’s not much else that can be done for shoulder tendinitis.  Fortunately, this injury will go away with time.

If you have a shoulder tendinitis injury, or any other type of injury from a fall or an accident, contact us today at Dwyer Williams Cherkoss Accident Injury Attorneys for a free case evaluation. You can also reach us directly at: 1-800-285-8678. Our team of experienced personal injury attorneys will work hard to ensure that you receive the compensation that you deserve!