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Well, shoulder is one of the most common joint giving rise to chronic pain and discomfort. Individuals of all ages may suffer from shoulder pain. However, degenerative shoulder pain is one of the most common problems affecting the quality of life middle age onwards; you may wonder why???

Amongst all the joints in human body, shoulder has extremely unique structure. There is a huge ball which fits into a small socket. This particular design gives shoulder an immaculate range of around 360 degree movement. This flexibility is useful for athletic activities like throwing, bowling, badminton, tennis etc and it is equally useful in our day to day activities like combing our hair to lifting stuff overhead. You may not realize that this extreme mobility and flexibility makes the shoulder susceptible to a lot of pains and aches due to the stress on the soft tissues. Since the cup is small, the maintenance of the head into the joint is carried out by soft tissue structures around the stuff overhead. You may not realize that this extreme mobility and flexibility makes the shoulder susceptible to a lot of pains and aches due to the stress on the soft tissues. Since the cup is small, the maintenance of the head into the joint is carried out by soft tissue structures around the joint, which is dynamic in nature and often leading to injuries.

With age and repetitive forces, one may start getting subtle shoulder damage causing mild to moderate pain at shoulder or the adjoining region. This may be during the activities, or may even be a static pain at rest. You may get weakness at the muscles around shoulders. This may be because of the inflammatory process at the tendons or may even be frank tears leading to discontinuity and loss of power. It is worth while to know that such a loss may be compensated by other substitute muscles and patient may not realize it till the damage is aggravated and becomes severe. Hence visiting your orthopaedic surgeon at right time may be useful to get you back to normal with minimal intervention. It's important to note that whenever there is an injury or inflammation/irritation the body

tries to protect itself by reducing the movement at shoulder. If this protective mechanism persists for a longer time, the stiffness may increase leading to phenomenon called as ‘adhesive capsulitis’or ‘frozen shoulder’. Diabetic individuals are prone for adhesive capsulitis as compared to non diabetics and regular exercises and stretches are extremely useful to prevent shoulder stiffness.

In fact, the best way to deal with Any shoulder problem is prevention. We should often understand the limitations of body to prevent niggles and injures. Sufficient warm ups should be done before exercising and weight training. You should gradually increase the level of activity or weights or resistance to avoid sudden give way and injuries. It is often better to begin with less weights and resistance in increased quantities to train your muscles. Once the body adapts to the training, you may step up the resistance. Weights beyond the functional capacity can lead to fatigue and it is usually counter productive. Nutrition is equally important for well being and should be part of protocol of sports training. Intake of natural sources of proteins and fresh fruits should be consumed as they have better nutritive value than stored/canned foods and formula feeds.

After careful evaluation of the problem and getting the necessary investigations to aid the clinical findings, an appropriate plan can be formulated

Shoulder aches can often be very disabling and may hamper the routine day to day activities. They may even occur at rest at night if there are calcium depositions in the tendons due to repetitive stress. You should consult your doctor to get yourself evaluated rather than taking over the counter medications. Shoulder problems are very deceptive due to the flexibility and neglecting them can lead to burning out the soft tissues around.

After careful evaluation of the problem and getting the necessary investigations to aid the clinical findings, an appropriate plan can be formulated. Treatment in mild pain can range from anti inflammatory medications to shoulder injections. However severe problems or frank tears and dislocations often land up in some kind of surgical intervention.With the recent advances in arthroscopy (key hole procedures), the surgery has become extremely productive. The shoulder can be evaluated all around and all the internal structures can be thoroughly assessed. The magnification that we get due to the technology helps in better assessment of the internal damage, thereby aiding precise treatment of the same. Arthroscopy surgeries have less tissue handling and thus better wound healing, the chances of infection are significantly low due to constant lavage of fluid.

Once the surgery is completed, patient has to undergo a rigorous physiotherapy program to get the range of movement and strength back. Various exercises and resisted theraband drills are useful to get back the function of the shoulder. If you have shoulder pain or stiffness, make sure you take the right steps in time, so that you can have good quality of life and functional. Always remember, prevention is anytime better than finding a cure.