Is Your Shoulder Pain Coming From Your Neck?

Lots of people get pain around the shoulder and one thing that we need to decipher is whether it is ‘true’ shoulder pain or if the pain is coming from else where and being felt in the shoulder?!

The most common ailment giving pain in the shoulder is irritation of the small joints in the neck. The small joints of the neck/cervical spine are called the ‘Facet Joints’ and we name/number them as they descend through the neck C1 to C7, when these joints become irritated then can give a sensation of pain in different areas as you can see from the image. The joints even though small are very pain sensitive and this is what can trick the body into feeling the pain around the shoulder and shoulder blade.

So how do we differentiate the origin of the pain?

Well here at the clinic we take a detailed case history and finding the answers to some questions begins to give us an idea and then we perform a some tests on and around the shoulder and the neck, and we can see which one reproduces symptoms.

So what next?

After figuring out where the pain is coming from we can produce a treatment plan to work improve the functioning of the ‘facet joints’ and in turn reduce the shoulder pain!