Your shoulders are the most complex joints in your body. Their great range of motion and strength come through their unique anatomy.
If you suffer a fall or a jarring shoulder injury, you might feel you dodged a bullet if you feel no pain right away. However, damage may already be done, and it gets worse over time. As medical multi-specialists, the team at Doctors United in the Bronx, White Plains, Ardsley, and Yonkers, New York, can help you live pain-free.
When you fall, there’s often awkward and unpredictable movement. You can fall on your arm and indirectly injure your shoulder, or you can make direct contact. In either case, you may have soft tissue injuries that aren’t immediately apparent.
More than any other joint in your body, the shoulder relies on soft tissue support. The rotator cuff is a structure of ligaments, muscles, and tendons that stabilize the shoulder by holding the upper arm in its shallow socket.
Damage to the shoulder may not be to the bones, but instead to these soft tissues and the cartilage covering that protects bone ends where they meet in joints.
A fall can trigger a stress event, the so-called “fight-or-flight” reaction that helps your body respond immediately to emergencies. There’s a significant chemical reaction that protects your ability to deal with a crisis.
Part of this response is a suppression of pain. Your brain may not interpret signals the same way it would without the effects of adrenaline masking the pain.
Your body’s response to the fall may not be immediate. The original injury may cause minor inflammation that isn’t significant on its own. However, because there’s little extra room in the shoulder, that swelling irritates other tissue, creating an injury load that continues to build.
Certain shoulder problems can create a cascade of deterioration without treatment, until a minor problem becomes significant. These include:
Late-emerging pain may still be identifiable as stemming from a fall. Key indicators include:
It’s time to have your shoulder examined when:
Visit the shoulder pain specialists at Doctors United when rest and home care aren’t enough to improve your shoulder condition. Be proactive and come in for an exam after a fall, but before pain becomes difficult to manage. Call or click to book with our nearest location today.
