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 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, it is primarily due to over stretching. However, it implies either a long term damage or a temporary overexertion of those muscles and attached tendons. It could happen due to various reasons and is manifested in different ways.

Causes
Undue pressure on the muscles while doing your daily activities involving sudden and heavy lifting, during any work or sports activity can cause them to stretch more than their normal capacity. This could lead to strain in the 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. Another important factor contributing to this problem is a bad posture like slouching.

Symptoms
There are various ways in which a damaged muscle can be identified or can be gauged. So let's see what are these symptoms observed in muscle injury.

• Pain
• Tenderness
• Inflammation
• Bruising
• Stiffness and soreness
• Loss of flexibility

These were the immediate and explicit symptoms. Now the degree of severity depends upon what kind of shoulder injury or damage it is.

Types
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 the 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 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 strain is a result of a sport like golf or tennis or throwing a ball with extreme force. If there is a tear in them, the pain could be acute.

Treatment
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 it 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 shoulder muscle. Finally avoid sudden lifting and throwing actions.

In cases where the strain 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!