Your shoulder is a complex and intricate joint, which means it’s not always easy to find the right treatment for your issue. If you’ve come to this page seeking answers for why your shoulder pain continues to persist despite your best efforts, we’re hoping that we can explain why you may be running into a recovery roadblock. In today’s blog, we take a closer look at some of the most common reasons why your shoulder isn’t responding to treatment, and what you can do to overcome these hurdles to recovery.
Why My Shoulder Isn’t Improving
There are a number of different reasons why your shoulder pain may not be improving, so let’s start with some of the more common reasons:
- Not Seeking Proactive Treatment – When new pain develops, people oftentimes retreat to two common passive treatment methods – rest and medications. Both of these can play a very helpful role in your recovery program, but neither treat the root cause of your issue, they only address the resulting symptoms. These options can provide some short-term relief, but unless you pursue active interventions to address weakness or shoulder instability, problems will likely return. Don’t assume that rest or medications alone will provide the long-term relief you seek.
- Still Putting Stress On The Shoulder – If trying to treat your shoulder discomfort while continuing to pursue activities that led to the shoulder issue in the first place, you’re going to be fighting an uphill battle in terms of treatment success. For example, if you’re continuing to pitch for your baseball team or run the drill press at work despite trying to overcome chronic shoulder inflammation, you’re still probably putting too much strain on the shoulder throughout the day for active treatments to be effective. You may have to step away from athletics, work or other physical activities for a short while in order to fully put your shoulder symptoms behind you.
- Wrong Diagnosis – It’s also possible that you are misdiagnosed and in turn treating the wrong underlying issue. Many shoulder issues respond well to similar treatments, like controlled range of motion stretches, ice/heat and physical therapy, but they all require their own individual care and attention. A lot of shoulder conditions also present with similar symptoms, so if you try to self-diagnose, you may end up missing the true cause of your discomfort. To dramatically reduce the likelihood of a misdiagnosis, consult with your primary care physician or a shoulder specialist.
- Lack Of Effort – We never want to assume that the patient is to blame for their lack of progress when it comes to treatment, but we always like to remind patients that when it comes to shoulder care, oftentimes you get out what you put in. If you are primarily focused on passive treatments and aren’t committing to physical therapy or your rehab exercises, it shouldn’t be all that surprising that you’re not achieving the results you had hoped for. Really look inwards and ask yourself if you are really giving your rehabilitation program your all.
- More Hands-On Care Required – Sometimes the internal shoulder damage is so severe that physical therapy or similar non-invasive treatments simply won’t help correct the underlying issue, so more hands-on care is required. Oftentimes this comes in the form of a surgical procedure, but techniques like corticosteroid injections and professional manual shoulder manipulation may also be recommended. If you’ve aggressively pursued weeks of proactive nonsurgical care and you’re still not seeing progress, it may be time to seek more hands-on professional care.
We’ve helped countless patients overcome obstacles to their shoulder pain treatment, and we can do the same for you. For more information on why your shoulder may not be responding as expected to treatment, or for help with a different shoulder issue, reach out to Dr. Holloway and his team today at (865) 410-7887.
