It’s not until an area of your body is in pain that you realize just how often that area is in play. As a great example of this, let’s take a look at your shoulder. When you have a shoulder injury, everything from eating to sleeping becomes a little more challenging.
If you’re finding sleep difficult because of shoulder pain, the odds are very good that we can help — both in getting you more sleep and helping your shoulder heal.
Here at TLC Physical Therapy, Jason LaMendola, PT, and the team are experts in helping people find relief from shoulder pain through physical therapy (PT).
If your shoulder pain is preventing you from getting a good night’s sleep, read on to learn more.
There are many possible culprits behind your shoulder pain, including:
Throughout your body, 150 small, liquid-filled sacs act as spacers between your bones. Called bursa sacs, when they become inflamed, it can lead to bursitis, which is quite common in the shoulder. Bursitis results in pain, tenderness, and swelling in your shoulder, which can flare at night if you roll onto your shoulder.
Your rotator cuff is an important group of tissues that connects your upper arm to your body. The rotator cuff includes muscles and tendons; if you tear this tissue, it can lead to nighttime pain.
Tendonitis is a condition that typically occurs over time and as a result of repetitive use. With tendinitis, tiny tears develop in the tissue, leading to pain and inflammation in your shoulder. Tendonitis in your shoulder can involve your rotator cuff or your biceps tendon.
Tendonitis can also render your shoulder tender, making sleep very difficult.
Several other issues can result in shoulder pain that keeps you up at night, such as shoulder impingement, a fracture, or arthritis. We should also mention that you may not have any damage in your shoulder, and your sleeping position is causing discomfort.
Once we determine what’s causing your pain, we start a PT program to help relieve the discomfort, no matter what time of day. We have several goals when it comes to PT:
Through targeted exercises and stretches, we help the damage in your shoulder to heal quickly and properly.
All too often, people deal with a painful joint by giving it a break for a little while, and when the pain starts to go down, they get right back to using the joint as they normally would. Unfortunately, this often injures the fragile tissues again because the original damage wasn’t properly addressed the first time around. Through PT, we make every effort to avoid this outcome.
If you want to experience how PT can successfully relieve joint pain, please contact one of our offices on the North and South Shores of Staten Island, in Englishtown, New Jersey, or Midtown, Manhattan, in New York City, to schedule an appointment.
