Why Your Shoulder Pain Isn’t Getting Better
Often when we feel pain at a specific location, it is human nature to think that area is the problem. This is what makes our job as physical therapists so interesting and rewarding! We love to solve these puzzles for you, so your shoulder pain doesn’t have to be a guessing game. We would love for it to be easy and have the shoulder pain come from a shoulder problem, but we can also have this stem from the thoracic spine or cervical spine (mid back or neck)!
We commonly evaluate many people with shoulder pain at our twin cities physical therapy locations. This is an area of specialty for our physical therapy team. What has been seen time and time again is though the shoulder may have some elements of dysfunction, it is one part of a full moving unit stemming all the way back to the shoulder blade and spine. We also love to treat back and neck pain at our physical therapy clinics, so we make sure not to miss these areas in our evaluations.
If your shoulder pain is actually coming from or related to your spine, we commonly utilize spinal manipulation or general spine mobilizations to get this area to move better and ease the neurophysiological burden being put on the system. We will also isolate your shoulder in areas that we find deficits, but we find treating the whole system to be so powerful and get results achieved faster in relieving shoulder pain.
Research is also in support of this too! Many studies have been done on shoulder pain and treating the spine. We are finding that treating the spine along with the shoulder is getting better results both clinically and in the research than just treating the shoulder by itself. Again, treat the system for optimal results!
Interested in knowing more about physical therapy for shoulder pain that just doesn’t seem to go away? Our physical therapy team in Minneapolis and Stillwater are ready to help the current you while also helping the future you in the process.
We would be happy to discuss further how Loon State Physical Therapy can be a teammate in getting you back to moving and feeling your best! Our convenient Minneapolis physical therapy, Edina physical therapy, and Stillwater physical therapy locations will happily welcome you to get you back to moving at your best. Call us at (612) 405-8503 or book with us online at www.loonstatephysicaltherapy.com for an in-person or virtual appointment.
We look forward to being your teammate through this recovery journey!
Andrew Eccles
Owner and Physical Therapist at Loon State Physical Therapy
