♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapists ♪
♪ On the Internet ♪
- Well hi there, folks.
I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- And we are the most famous physical therapists
on the Internet.
- In our opinion, of course, Bob.
- Today we're gonna talk about shoulder pain,
12 signs you need to see the doctor immediately.
This is a little bit deceptive because it,
not necessarily immediately
with all of these. - Right.
- With some of these, I would say, "Yes," right away,
but others, the idea is
that you're gonna eventually see the doctor
because this is something that needs to be checked out.
- Correct.
- Number one.
A recent traumatic event.
Let's say you've had a fall,
you had a motor vehicle accident,
you've had an athletic injury.
This is a case where you're gonna wanna have somebody
from the medical field check you out.
- Right.
You know, it's painful, it's swelling up,
you can't move it.
There's some other things.
- Well, one of the reasons is,
as you had mentioned earlier, Brad,
when we were talking is that there could be a fracture
in there. - Right, right.
- And you know, you don't have X-ray vision
so you can't see whether
or not something's maybe got a hairline fracture
or. - Right, right.
And then you may treat that differently
as opposed to ice, strain or whatnot.
- Yeah, right.
Number two.
If the pain extends beyond your elbow.
In other words, you have shoulder pain
and it's going down your arm.
It goes to the elbow, that's not atypical.
That can happen.
- Pretty typical, right. - Yeah.
But if it goes into the forearm, wrist, and hand,
and especially if you have, like, numbness and tingling,
there's a good possibility you might have a neck problem
and that's where you need
to have a professional take a look at you.
- Right, there's a good chance the problem may be
in the shoulder, but also,
or all could be from the low neck.
So you're maybe treating your shoulder.
I've had patients where their shoulder hurts
and I treated their neck and it was the neck.
- Yep.
- So, that possibility is first.
- Or vice versa.
Number three, if you're having inability
to move the arm or the joint.
- Yeah.
So,
if you try to lift up your arm
and all's you can do is this or that,
you need to go in and--
- Yeah, there's a lot of things that could be going on.
It might be a rotator cuff tear,
but, I mean, it could be other things too
and so we just wanna make sure.
Number four, you have signs of an infection.
So there's swelling, the skin of the shoulder is warm--
- Right.
- It's hot to touch.
The shoulder's red and inflamed.
You know,
extreme pain is felt. - Right.
You've got a temperature.
It's a good idea to check your temperature.
You know, then for sure or not for sure,
but it's just more, a stronger indication that,
you know, unless you got the flu--
- It's funny, Brad, I had inflammation
of my long thoracic nerve, you know,
a long time ago when I was in my twenties
and I don't know why that happened.
But I would've taken cocaine if you woulda gave it to me
'cause that pain was so bad. - Sure.
- And it was constant.
I mean, no matter what I did,
no matter how I laid down. - Yeah.
- I mean.
So, anyway.
That's an aside.
Number five.
You are feeling unwell
in association with the shoulder pain.
So you're not, you know, you're feeling bad overall
and you're having the shoulder pain.
- Right, right.
- Could be something else.
You know, again, we're not doctors.
- Right.
- We're not medical doctors.
So,
we don't wanna get into that area,
but there's could be other things that could be.
- Sure.
- Number six, you've had a previous history
of cancer or tumor.
- Mm-hmm.
- There's a type of cancer
that actually gives you shoulder pain
and the reason I know is I've seen this but also,
unfortunately, my sister called me just this past week
and they have a good friend that was having shoulder pain,
was watching our videos.
Then he went to work, he works construction.
He broke his shoulder
and found out there was a tumor in his shoulder.
- Oh, so the bone was weakened.
- Yeah, the bone was weakened, so.
Not to scare people, but it's something,
especially if you've got a history of cancer already.
- Right, right.
- Make sure, you wanna check it out.
Number seven, if you have chest pain
or a history of cardiac or heart problems.
Not unusual for heart problems to manifest themselves.
You could have it in the throat, the chest.
You can feel it definitely down the arm
and in the shoulder. - Right, shoulder, arm,
that referral pain's very typical.
Oftentimes if you're not using your shoulder,
but you're walking or your heart rate is going up
and it refers pain to your chest,
you know, that's, you know, get that checked out.
- That's a sign.
Number eight,
you have nighttime pain that's impeding your sleep.
Also, I'm always a little bit worried about nighttime pain
that lasts a long time too.
I mean, you can get, you might've irritated your shoulder
during the day and so it continues into the night
or it swells into the night.
Or if you're laying, lying on your shoulder.
- Right.
- There's a good reason right there that it's gonna hurt.
- Right, yeah.
If you wake up, you coulda been lying on it,
well that makes sense.
But if you have no reason for the pain--
- I think that would be laying on it, wouldn't it?
Lying, I don't know.
- We gotta get an English major for that.
- Number eight, number nine, I'm sorry.
You have swelling, bruising,
or discoloration of the shoulder.
Like, if you've had a traumatic event
and a lot of times when you have bruising or discoloration,
that means it was a little more serious.
Something was torn. - Right.
- Or something was broke.
So that's why we give you that recommendation.
Number 10, if you've had (stammering) shoulder,
shoulder surgery in the past, like, six to 12 months
and you suddenly start having shoulder pain,
you should see your orthopedic doctor
to see what's going on there.
If you have a history of dislocating your shoulder.
And this is often, with a lot of younger people
who can easily dislocate their shoulder.
- And hypermobility.
- Yep, they're hypermobile
and that type of thing you wanna see the doctor.
Unfortunately, if you tend to dislocate your shoulder a lot
and you're younger than, like, 20 or even 25, I believe,
they usually recommend surgery, Brad,
because it's just gonna keep happening.
- Right, if it pops out, it's painful and it pops back in
and that's getting worse and worse over time, yeah.
- So number 12, this is certainly one
of those that it's not an emergency,
but if you have neck or upper back pain
with the shoulder pain.
- Mm-hmm.
- Like we, we're gonna do another video just today actually.
But if your pain is from here to here,
that's really not shoulder, that's more neck.
- More than likely, right. - Yeah, more likely.
So, in those instance, in that instance, again,
you may wanna have someone
that really knows what they're doing,
trying to pinpoint what's going on.
- Right, exactly. - So.
That's it, folks.
Check out the rest of our video series on shoulder pain.
(electronic music)