To define the effectiveness of acupuncture treatment for chronic shoulder pain (CSP) in subjects with spinal cord injury (SCI) we need to more about chronic shoulder pain first. Chronic shoulder pain is the 3rd most common variety of musculoskeletal pain that people from all around the world suffer from.
It has a significant impact on the health-related grades of your both personal and social life. In Chinese medicine, chronic shoulder pain is considered among the medical conditions most controllable to treatment with the help of acupuncture.
The goal of Acupuncture treatment is to assess the effectiveness of local acupoints in your shoulder in combination with the distal acupoints for pain relief as well as shoulder function advancement in CSP patients.
So, let’s now know in detail about shoulder pain, acute pain, chronic pain, frozen shoulder, shoulder knot, etc, in this article below. We will also discuss if acupuncture is effective or not to treat these medical conditions.
Shoulder Pain Syndrome
Shoulder pain generally arises from our shoulder joint or any of the muscles, tendons, or ligaments surrounding our shoulder. Shoulder pain arising due to joint normally worsens with movement or activities of our shoulder or arm.
On the other hand, if shoulder pain arises due to another structure then it will worsen as soon as we move our shoulder or try to keep our nervous system continuously active.
What Is Frozen Shoulder?
Frozen shoulder is also called “adhesive capsulitis”. It’s a medical condition represented by pain and stiffness in the shoulder joint. Symptoms and signs of developing frozen shoulder generally begin slowly, worsen with time, and after that resolve, normally within 1-3 years. Your pain specialist can explain to you better why frozen shoulder occurs.
Frozen shoulder generally develops gradually, and in three stages. Such as…
Freezing stage
Frozen stage
Thawing stage
For diagnosis of such a problem, your arthritis doctor may suggest you do X-rays, Magnetic resonance imaging tests (MRI), and ultrasound to find the exact reason behind your illness.
Prevention & Cure of shoulder pain
Simple exercises of the shoulder can help stretch & strengthen rotator cuff tendons and muscles.
After having tendinitis or bursitis, performing simple exercises daily will keep you from calling frozen shoulders.
Often, numbing medications and corticosteroids are injected into your joint capsule with obvious cause and especially when your pain worsens. This helps to restore motion and ease the pain.
What is a Shoulder Knot or Muscle Knot?
A shoulder knot is a muscle knot on your shoulder joint. It’s a tender spot or painful place in a muscle on your shoulder.
When you get a shoulder knot, it’ll feel sore and tight, and sometimes such pain occurs in your upper back in your shoulder blade area or legs.
They aren’t normally harmful, however, they can surely be uncomfortable in your day-to-day life. In rare cases, shoulder knots are a symbol of a long period or chronic shoulder pain condition. So be careful if you see any issues like that.
What is Chronic Pain?
Chronic pain is a long-lasting pain that stays for 3 months or more than the time of regular tissue healing. Physical outcomes include limited mobility, tense muscles, changes in appetite, and a lack of energy may suggest chronic pain syndrome.
Emotional effects such as anger, anxiety, depression, and fear of getting injured again. Many different types of pain may result in chronic pain. However, today we are going to discuss chronic shoulder pain in this article below and also we will know if acupuncture manages such pain or not.
What Can Cause Chronic Pain Syndrome?
Doctors do not know precisely what causes Chronic Pain Syndrome. It usually begins with a painful condition or injury, for example:
- Arthritis & other joint issues
- Headaches
- Back pain
- Repetitive stress damages, when the same activity over and over puts pressure on your body part and causes re-injury
- Muscle sprains and strains
Nerve damage
- Broken bones
- Lyme disease
- Ulcers or acid reflux
- Cancer
- Irritable bowel syndrome
- Inflammatory bowel disease
Surgery
The roots of Chronic Pain Syndrome are both mental and physical. Some orthopedic surgeons believe that individuals with the disorder have an issue with the nervous system and glands that our body uses to manage stress and thus your body heals. That makes us feel pain differently and reduces risk factors.
What is Acute Pain?
Acute pain starts abruptly and is normally sharp in quality. This serves as a portent of disease or a danger to your body. Acute pain may be caused due to several circumstances or events, including:
- Traumatic Pain, such as broken bone, burn or cut
- Surgical Pain
- Muscle strain
So, acute pain is mild and may last only for a moment, or it may be painful and last for several weeks to months. Acute pain doesn’t generally last longer than 6 months, as well as it disappears as soon as the root cause of the severe pain has healed or has been treated.
This can be treated with medicine, physical therapy, relaxation therapy, Acupuncture, and also lifestyle changes, for example, getting not smoking and enough sleep in your daily life.
How Is Chronic Shoulder Pain Treated?
To relieve your chronic shoulder pain, orthopedic surgeons first try to recognize and treat the underlying cause of your pain.
Orthopedic Surgeons treat chronic shoulder pain in several different methods. The technique depends on many factors, such as:
- The main cause of your shoulder pain
- The type of shoulder pain you have.
- Your overall health and age.
The best shoulder pain treatment strategies use a combination of methods, including lifestyle changes, medications, and therapies like acupuncture.
Activity Changes or Lifestyle Changes-
Treatment typically involves rest, changing your activities, as well as physical therapies to help you enhance shoulder flexibility and strength. It also includes avoiding overdoing activities or overexertion in which you usually don’t participate can aid you to prevent chronic shoulder pain and lessen your increased risk.
Medications
The doctor will prescribe medications to reduce pain and inflammation. In case medications are prescribed to reduce pain, they must be taken as directed only. Your doctor will also instruct injections of steroids or numbing medicines to reduce pain.
Surgery
It will require fixing some severe problems. Nevertheless, maximum patients with CSP will respond to straightforward treatment methods like changing activities, exercise, rest, and medications. Certain kinds of CSP issues like recurring dislocations & rotator cuff tears, might not cure by exercise. Thus, surgery will be instructed fairly early.
Therapies
Therapies like Acupuncture, physiotherapy, etc. can be recommended by your doctor to lessen the effects of CSP. However, since Acupuncture is a new method in the contemporary world, often people doubt the effects of such therapies for pain relief.
NOTE:
Surgery can consist of arthroscopy to take off scar tissue or fix torn tissues, or conventional open methods for larger replacement or reconstructions.
Having anxiety or depression can make your CSP worse. So, make sure you treat issues like that first.
Effectiveness Of Acupuncture On Chronic Shoulder Pain
Acupuncture is a non-medicine therapy being utilized to treat bodily pain. It’s believed that acupuncture functions by releasing chemical compounds in your body that reduce pain, by overriding the signals of pain in your nerves, or by letting energy or blood freely flow through your body.
Researchers have demonstrated that acupuncture can offer pain relief, enhance range of motion as well as speed up the recovery time of a patient.
Acupuncture for your shoulder pain is a crucial pain management technique for reducing this type of pain or any chronic pain. Acupuncture can improve blood flow as well as blood circulation to the shoulder joint by offsetting the electrical rise in your nerves, cells, and fascia.
This medical thing reduces pain, stimulates healing, and also improves the production of your shoulder’s synovial fluid to boost smoother motion.
Acupuncture is a standard practice that utilizes needles to relieve pain with Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation (in short TENS) treatment, which utilizes very low levels of electric power to loosen your muscle and thus lessen the pain.
Acupuncture helps reduce pain, decrease inflammation, free tight muscles, and also increases the range of movement for a wide range of shoulder issues along with complementary and integrative health issues.
The Evidence Project on Acupuncture shows that there’s moderate proof to back the efficacy of acupuncture for shoulder pain treatment and also impingement syndrome of the shoulder.
NOTE:
Acupuncture can be extremely helpful in managing chronic or acute shoulder pain, as well as it may also help resolve such pain completely!
BOTTOM LINE
Acupuncture is a convincing treatment procedure for chronic or acute shoulder pain. The progress with acupuncture for chronic pain or acute pain and process was about the same as the consequences of receiving medical therapy for two to four weeks.
A combined treatment like physical therapy, counseling, and also relaxation techniques along with acupuncture can help reduce your chronic pain and also other symptoms that come with your chronic pain.
To learn more about how we treat acute or chronic shoulder pain and frozen shoulder symptoms click here.