Shoulder and Chest Pain

[Jaylt]

Hi,

I've been having shoulder and neck pain for almost a year now, and over the last month I'm also having pains in my chest. My blood pressure and ECG have come back normal. I've been told it may be due to poor posture, stretching my shoulder and chest muscles. But I've tried exercising, massage, chiropractor, and improving my posture but have seen no improvement at all. Any advice?

[Raschey]

Hi, In the past I have had chest pains which have stemmed from my back. If you have seen a chiropractor, then perhaps you could ask your doctor for a MRI on your spine.

[cyberbarn]

Have you tried a physio? I saw a osteopath regularly for many years, but he couldn't get my neck pain to stop. And because some of the muscles in the neck run down the back and front of the body, the pain can be felt there too.

I went to a NHS physio who specialises in necks and she sorted me out and I haven't had to see the osteopath since! She gave me a very different sort of exercise, nothing like I had ever seen before, and they really helped. She also helped me change my posture. I had been approaching that in the wrong way for many years. I had been looking at people that slump and thinking I didn't want to be like that. But I changed it around and started looking for people that sit and stand tall, and decided to be more like them, and it worked! But couldn't do it until after I had been doing the exercises for a few weeks.

[Jaylt in reply to cyberbarn]

Thanks so much for your reply. I've been trying really hard to change my posture too but am finding it quite hard. Do you know the name of the exercise your physio taught you?

Thank you so much!

[cyberbarn in reply to Jaylt]

There is no name for them as such, she just got me tilting my head in certain ways, and moving my arms in certain ways. It was all very gentle and some of the movements were very small. It was as much about proprioception as anything else. One of them we called the window washing exercise, and another I called the son bashing exercise as I was doing it in bed once and accidentally bashed my son who was beside me. It just involved moving my arm forward and backward in very small movements. They were something that had to be shown rather than told how to do them.

For my hands (arthritis) there is one called the hitchhiker as it involves sticking your thumb out!

But the important thing is the evaluation with a physio to make sure that you are doing the exercises right, not over doing them, and that they are tailored to which ever muscles are causing the problems.