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If you have pain in your shoulder and suspect it is rotator cuff tendonitis you could be right and probably should seek medical treatment. Rotator cuff tendonitis is a common injury and goes by the alternate names Swimmer’s shoulder, Pitcher’s shoulder, and Tennis shoulder. The reason for this is because rotator cuff tendonitis is caused by repeated motion of the arm over the head. This causes an inflammation of the tendons which will lead to pain and discomfort. In addition chronic inflammation or injury can cause the tendons of the rotator cuff to tear, which is a very serious injury.
Symptoms Of Rotator Cuff Tendonitis:
The most common symptom is pain associated with arm movement above your head. In addition there will be pain in the shoulder at night, especially when sleeping on the affected side. The other common symptom is weakness when raising your arm above your head. You may experience tingling as well. Most of these symptoms can be observed and felt when doing simple tasks like brushing your hair or reaching to get an object off of a high shelf.
Rotator Cuff Tendonitis Treatment:
The best thing you can do to treat rotator cuff tendonitis is rest the shoulder. Stop any activity that causes pain and spend at least a month or so without any activity on the shoulder. You can apply ice packs and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs to reduce the swelling and pain. Once the pain symptoms subside a bit, you can start physical therapy to strengthen the shoulder. If the pain does not subside or you can not do the physical therapy because of the extreme pain then a steroid injection may reduce pain and inflammation enough to allow for effective therapy. In addition, if the rotator suffers a complete tear or the symptoms persist even with therapy, surgery may be required. In some cases there may be bone spurs causing the muscle on the shoulder to become inflamed. These can be easily repaired and may alleviate the symptoms. Small and even sometimes large tears may be repaired arthroscopically. In other cases however the tear is too big to treat this way and must be repaired with open surgery.
The prognosis for recovery from rotator cuff tendonitis is very good. Most people can return to pre symptom activity level in no time. A tear on the other hand can be a little bit more difficult to recover from and the recovery is largely dependent on many other factors.
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