1. Many Reasons for Chronic Shoulder Pain
If you have a dull, aching pain in your shoulder you may have hurt your rotator cuff. You notice it hurts more when you lift your arm above your head. The chronic pain has been slowly getting worse. If it hurts in the upper part of your arm and it's hard to sleep on that side, you may have tendinitis. If your shoulder makes a clicking noise or suddenly gives away, you may be experiencing an onset of arthritis. You can even get chronic shoulder pain from soft tissue damage, caused by a car accident.
2. Heat Your Way to Relief
Applying heat to your shoulder will loosen and relax tissues. It'll also get the blood moving through the painful spot. Applying a heating pad to your shoulder before performing an activity, like gardening or playing a sport, can loosen it up and make it feel better. If you have soft tissue damage in your shoulder, put some heat on it during a flare-up. This will alleviate the pain. A hot wet towel or any heating pad will work--some plug in, others go in the microwave first. Just check that it's not too hot or you'll burn yourself.
3. Meds Can Ease Pain
Your doctor may want to try out several anti-inflammatory pain medications. Motrin and its generic, ibuprofen, are available over-the-counter. You have to have a prescription for others like Celebrex, Relafen, Lyrica and Zanaflex. The effect is twofold--they relieve your pain and reduce swelling in your shoulder. It's important to know that some of the medications will make you drowsy, which doesn't make them practical if you have a flare-up of pain in the middle of the day while you're at work.
4. Go Alternative to Help Shoulder Pain
Acupuncture and massage therapy are two treatments that can help your chronic shoulder pain. Massage can help pain caused by tense muscles. The therapist stretches out your shoulder and releases the tightness you're experiencing. The jury is still out on acupuncture's effect on shoulder pain, but it's said that it releases chemical compounds that relieve pain and improves blood flow to your shoulder.
5. Strengthening = Curing
Painkillers and injections may dull the pain. They may even make it go away temporarily, but sometimes the only way to actually heal your shoulder is to make it stronger. A physical therapist can show you exercises to strengthen your shoulder. For all you know, the root of the pain isn't even in your shoulder. Maybe you're overcompensating for pain somewhere else in your body and your shoulder is bearing the brunt of it.
