How to treat rotator cuff pain

Having rotator cuff inflammation is a particularly painful thing. It restricts both your life and work. This disease is more common in the elderly. As you age, your bones degenerate and it is easy to cause rotator cuff inflammation due to insufficient blood supply, wear and tear and other factors. Therefore, you should pay special attention to rest, avoid activities that are too strenuous, and reduce the degree of shoulder injury. So how should you treat the unbearable pain of rotator cuff inflammation?

The main function of the rotator cuff is to pull the humeral head toward the glenoid cavity when the upper arm is abducted, maintaining the normal fulcrum structure between the humeral head and the glenoid cavity, which plays an extremely important role in maintaining shoulder function and stability. Rotator cuff injury is a type of tendinitis and can be divided into traumatic and non-traumatic.

Traumatic rotator cuff injuries mostly occur in young and middle-aged people, participating in sports that mainly involve upper limb movements (such as baseball, swimming, weightlifting, rackets, etc.), or are caused by greater violence during labor operations such as lifting heavy objects.

Non-traumatic rotator cuff injuries often occur in the elderly population, and factors such as age, wear and tear, or blood supply cause rotator cuff tissue degeneration. In addition, subacromial impingement is also a common cause of rotator cuff degeneration and tear.

The main symptoms of rotator cuff injury are shoulder pain accompanied by inability to lift. The pain on the affected side is significantly aggravated when lying on the side at night, and the pain is distributed in the front of the shoulder joint and the deltoid muscle area; the abduction, elevation, extension, and internal rotation of the affected shoulder are limited, and there may be a plucking sound when the rotator cuff slides across the bone surface when the joint is rotated. Patients with larger tears or a long history of illness may experience atrophy of the supraspinatus, infraspinatus, and deltoid muscles; there is obvious tenderness, and shoulder joint movement is severely limited.

When the rotator cuff is injured superficially and the main part of the tendon is not involved and there is no obvious effect on movement, non-surgical comprehensive treatment can usually be performed. If the shoulder abduction motion cannot be basically restored or when the rotator cuff tear occurs in the full thickness or deep layer, surgical treatment is necessary. During routine treatments such as physical therapy, cold compress, protective gear fixation, medication, acupuncture, local blockade, traditional Chinese medicine, etc., you can also use shoulder protection products such as Bodao shoulder fixation strap to strengthen shoulder warmth. By applying local pressure and braking to the affected area, you can enhance the stability of the shoulder joint, correct its mechanical structure, ensure rest space, and effectively improve the rehabilitation treatment and protection effects. Non-traumatic rotator cuff injury is often misdiagnosed as frozen shoulder. The key to treating frozen shoulder is to increase joint movement, while the key to treating rotator cuff injury is immobilization and rest. Therefore, the two should be carefully distinguished during treatment.