Muscle Strain in Shoulder

Ever experienced that searing pain in your shoulder and around your neck, which left you wondering why it happened? That is nothing but strain in the shoulder and in the surrounding area which happened at some point of time when you did not realize it. The shoulder pain is a manifestation of that strain on your muscles. Not a very unnatural or abnormal thing, shoulder muscle strain is primarily due to over stretching of the muscles. However, it implies either a long term damage or a temporary over exertion of those muscles and attached tendons. Muscle strain in shoulder could happen due to various reasons and is manifested in different ways. Here is what muscle strain in your shoulder is all about.

Shoulder Muscle Strain Causes
Undue pressure on the muscles while doing your daily activities involving sudden and heavy lifting, during any work or sports activity can cause your tendons and muscles to stretch more than their normal capacity. This could lead to muscle strain in shoulder blades. In case of it being severe, it could lead to tearing of the muscle as well. If it is mild, it hardly involves any tearing of muscle fibers. Another important factor contributing to shoulder muscle strain is a bad posture like slouching. Read shoulder pain: causes and treatment for more on causes of shoulder pain.

Shoulder Muscle Strain Symptoms
There are various ways in which a damaged muscle can be identified or can be gauged. Be it soreness and pain in the muscles or swelling of the muscles, it adequately announces its presence. So let's see what are these symptoms of a muscle injury.

• Muscle pain
• Tenderness in muscles
• Inflammation of muscles
• Bruising of muscles
• Stiffness and soreness
• Loss of flexibility

These were the immediate and explicit symptoms of muscle strain. Now the degree of severity depends upon what kind of shoulder injury or damage it is. So let's take a look at these different types of shoulder injuries. For more on neck and shoulder pain check out neck and shoulder pain: causes, symptoms and treatment.

Types of Shoulder Muscle Injuries
There are several categories of muscle injuries, determined by which area they target. These are as follows:

Deltoid Muscle Strain: This is the large muscle present on top of the shoulder. It facilitates the movements of our arms to our sides. If at all this injury has occurred, the person will experience a sharp pain while raising his or her arm.

Upper Back Strain: These muscles between the shoulder blades can be strained if the arms are in a raised position for a long time. Routine activities causing pain between shoulder blades could be working on a computer with the keyboard too high or driving a car where the steering is too far off.

Clavicle Muscle Swelling: The clavicle, commonly known as the collarbone can get irritated and swollen on account of prolonged action resembling a throw. This leads to muscle pain and stiffness of these muscles.

Rotator Cuff Tear: As the name suggests, the rotation of our shoulders is possible due to these muscles present in the rotator cuff. This kind of muscle strain in shoulder is a result of a sport like golf or tennis or throwing a ball with extreme force. If there is a tear in these muscles, the pain could be acute.

After the description on the types of muscle injuries and strain, here is more on how they can be treated and prevented.

Treatment for Muscle Strain in Shoulder
Unless it is a very serious damage to the shoulder muscles, it can be dealt with at home. For starters, you can pop a non steroidal anti inflammatory medicine to lessen the pain. In addition to that, use an ice pack or a compression, which will further help in relieving the pain and soothing the frayed tendons and muscle fibers. Before you do this, remove any jewelry (if at all) and constrictive clothing to ensure that the ice pack proves effective. One more important pointer is to avoid strain to that muscle as much as possible, allow it to rest. For avoiding injuries in the future, reduce the stretching before you do any kind of exercise, but that does not mean that you do not stretch before you have your work out. Go light on stretching your once strained shoulder muscle. Finally avoid sudden lifting and throwing actions.

For more on relief from shoulder strain read shoulder blade pain relief.

In cases where the muscle strain in shoulder is acute and involves total tearing of the muscle fibers, a surgery is the last resort. This is although, rare and could happen only if there is an accident or complete negligence to what signals you are getting from your body. Thus, at the initial sensation of strain, nip it in the bud, because as well all know, a stitch in time saves nine!