Shoulder Pain Treatment

Pins and needles is the common name for what the medical world call paresthesia. The feeling of tingling in the hands or feet is a symptom of nerve root irritation. This nerve irritation can be due to nerve pressure in the neck or the back - or it can be due to pressure on a nerve in a more peripheral part of the body, such as the wrist or the foot and ankle.

If a nerve root or peripheral nerve is subjected to sustained pressure then the feeling of pins and needles will develop in the skin supplied by that nerve. We are all familiar with this when we sit too long on a hard chair or bench and our foot "goes to sleep". When we get up and start to move again the pins and needles feeling starts in the limb and lasts for several minutes.

Nerve pressure or nerve root irritation will cause pins and needles, or pain, or weakness - and often all three will happen at the same time or within a few days of each other.

Carpal tunnel syndrome is the commonest example of peripheral nerve pressure when the median nerve is compressed as it passes through the carpal tunnel at the wrist. Pins and needles in the thumb and palm is the commonest symptom of carpal tunnel syndrome.

Labels: carpal tunnel syndrome, joint pain, nerve pain shoulder, paresthesia, pins and needles, whiplash

Carpal tunnel syndrome and frozen shoulder problems often seem to occur in the same patients - sometimes at the same time but sometimes many months apart.

Carpal tunnel syndrome is a problem with irritation of the median nerve - one of the main nerves that runs from the forearm into the hand.

The median nerve runs on the palm of the hand side of the forearm - entering the palm of the hand at almost exactly the mid point of your wrist crease. It supplies power to the muscles of the thumb and sensation to the skin of the thumb and the first three fingers - sometimes also to a bit of the fourth or ring finger too. To get into the hand the nerve has to pass through a tunnel of bones and gristle. This tunnel is called the carpal tunnel - so the problem of nerve entrapment there is called Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.

The commonest reason for carpal tunnel syndrome to develop is when the median nerve is squeezed in the tunnel. This often happens during pregnancy or in diabetic patients or in those with an under active thyroid gland. Often no cause is found at all - it just seems to start from nowhere and this is called Idiopathic carpal tunnel syndrome.

Sometimes however, carpal tunnel syndrome can arise as a later consequence of frozen shoulder. The median nerve arises from nerve roots that run in the armpit or axilla - just below the shoulder in other words. This group of nerve roots is called the brachial plexus and a good going frozen shoulder can affect the brachial plexus and thus eventually lead to carpal tunnel syndrome.

Labels: carpal tunnel syndrome, cause of frozen shoulder, diabetes joint pain, nerve pain shoulder, shoulder pain

Shoulder nerve pain is not common but it can arise for a number of reasons. The shoulder joint and all the muscles that surround it get their nerve supply from the same part of the spinal cord that supplies the fifth segment of the neck. This is called the C5 segment of the neck.

Pain from the C5 segment of the neck (or from the shoulder joint and the tissues that surround it) is felt from the top of the arm, down over the outer part of the elbow and towards the hand. This type of shoulder nerve pain is called referred pain.

The shoulder nerve is also called the suprascapular nerve - it runs above the spine of the shoulder blade bone - passing through a little notch - to supply the joint and its muscles.

Some specialist doctors can inject this suprascapular shoulder nerve as a treatment for chronic shoulder pain.


Read more about your shoulders by following the links on these pages

Labels: nerve pain shoulder, rotator cuff pain, shoulder nerve, shoulder pain