Shoulder pain

Yang is an University of Waterloo student came to my clinic. His complain was shoulder pain.

Most of his time at school is to sit in front of computer. His pain is at the base of his neck, between neck and shoulder.

This is a very common issue for students. In addition, I find the computer engineers, accountants, and many other professionals have the same issue.

When they come to me, the most common Questions always are:
1. why does it hurt?
2. How can I make it better?

Well, I will try to explain it by Anatomy & Physiology and Chinese Medical theories, also, I will give some tips of self-treatment.

Anatomy & Physiology

There are some information about spine curvature for proper posture. This is a very important reason that we shall take considerations. However, this is not my focus for this conversation.

Most of the times, pain is from the muscles, the spinal curvature is not the immediate concerns at the time.

There are two muscles involved: Upper trapezius muscle and levator scapulae muscle.

These two major posterior neck muscles attach to the base of the scull and the upper part of scapular. Their functions include extend the neck (bend backward), rotate the neck to the side (turn head to one side), as well as lifting the shoulder up (shrug shoulders).

As a normal posture, the levator scapulae and upper trapezius muscles shall be in their neutral state; meaning they are not lengthened, nor should be contracted.

However, when you sit there for 8 hours a day 5 days a week, without a proper posture, either slouching in the chair, or have your hands on the keyboard too high, your shoulders are elevated. This means that your upper trapezius muscle and levator scapular muscles are shortened, for the time been.

If the muscles are shortened and contracted for prolonged period of time, they may have reduced blood flow. A contracted muscle will require more blood supply; however, reduced blood flow will cause the muscle complain to the brain: I am hurting in the shoulder.

Chinese Medicine

The Chinese Medicine always involves two concepts:
Excessive
Deficiencies

In this case, both excessive and deficiencies may occur.

For example, people may experience pain in the upper back between the shoulder blades, that is Qi deficiency. They may experience lack of energy, easily tired, and feeling of pain.

Since Qi is not able to move the blood and other matters in the body, they may also experience blood stasis (c-blood stops flowing properly) and Qi stageration (Qi stop flowing properly).

When the Qi and c-blood are stuck, it causes pain.

This is what happened.

At the end, they always feel better when they have a wonderful treatment of massage and acupuncture.

Bonus Tips: What you can do by yourself

There are always some stretches you can do to relax the muscles.

1. Pause your work every 30-40min, walk around, move around your neck (rotate, flex, and extend), move around your shoulder
2. Stretch both Upper Trapezius muscle and Levator Scapulae muscles on both side

To stretch these two muscles, you need to rotate your head to left side (or right side) 45 degree, put your left (right) arm over your head, relax your arm and allow your left (right) arm to drop by gravity.

Variations:
1. to stretch upper trapezius muscle, you can keep the right (left) arm straight by its side, and you will feel the upper trapeziusm muscle been stretched;
2. to stretch levator scapulae muscle, you can just put your right (left) hand at your right (left) waist, more like give your shoulder point a little lift, then you will feel the middle angle of your scapular been stretched

(images on the production)

Wish you all have a wonderful healthy work and study!!! 😃