Neck Pain
Injury and postural problems are the main causes of neck pain. Physiotherapists can identify the reason for your neck pain and provide proven effective treatment.
What causes neck pain?
Your head is heavy and balanced on a narrow support made up of seven bones called vertebrae. The vertebrae are separated from each other by discs, stabilised by joints and ligaments and moved by muscles. Because the neck is so mobile, it is easily damaged. Injury and postural problems are the most common causes of neck pain. Diseases such as arthritis or degeneration of the discs can also cause pain. Some other causes:
- Ankylosing Spondylitis
- Bulging Disc
- Cluster Headaches
- Degenerative Disc Disease
- Facet Joint Pain
- Fibromyalgia
- Migraine
- Muscle Strain (Muscle Pain)
- Neck Arm Pain
- Neck Headache
- Overuse Injuries
- Pinched Nerve
- RSI – Repetitive Strain Injury
- Scoliosis
- Spondylosis (Spine Arthritis)
- Tension Headache
Neck injuries
Neck injuries most often result from motor vehicle, sports or occupational accidents. Damage may occur to vertebrae, joints, nerves, discs, ligaments and muscles. A common neck injury is the acceleration/deceleration injury or ‘whiplash’ where the head is thrown forward or backward.
Posture
If you are experiencing neck pain, it is important that you have your condition assessed by a physiotherapist.
Shoulder Pain
Shoulder pain and injury is common. Your shoulder is the most mobile of all your joints. Just think about how much it can actually move.
The reason for this movement is a very small joint contact zone. This essentially means that your shoulder is quite unstable. That is why your shoulder muscles are so vital to a normally functioning shoulder.
In most cases, if you are suffering shoulder pain it is because your muscles are simply not strong enough or they are uncoordinated.
Luckily, both of these dysfunctions can be normalised after a quality assessment and injury-specific exercises.
Most shoulder pain is caused by one of the following categories:
Rotator Cuff injury
What Causes a Rotator Cuff injury?
Your rotator cuff tendons are protected from simple knocks and bumps by bones (mainly the acromion) and ligaments that form a protective arch over the top of your shoulder.
In between the rotator cuff tendons and the bony arch is the sub acromial bursa (a lubricating sack), which helps to protect the tendons from touching the bone and provide a smooth surface for the tendons to glide over.
However, nothing is fool-proof. Any of these structures can be injured – whether they be your bones, muscles, tendons, ligaments or bursas.
Rotator cuff impingement syndrome is a condition where your rotator cuff tendons are intermittently trapped and compressed during shoulder movements. This causes injury to the shoulder tendons and bursa resulting in painful shoulder movements.
Symptoms
While each specific rotator cuff injury has its own specific symptoms and signs, you can suspect a rotator cuff injury if you have:
- an arc of shoulder pain or clicking when your arm is at shoulder height or when your arm is overhead.
- shoulder pain that can extend from the top of your shoulder to your elbow.
- shoulder pain when lying on your sore shoulder.
- shoulder pain at rest (in more severe rotator cuff injuries).
- shoulder muscle weakness or pain when attempting to reach or lift.
- shoulder pain when putting your hand behind your back or head.
- shoulder pain reaching for a seat-belt.
Bursitis Shoulder
What Causes Shoulder Bursitis?
Bursitis around the shoulder can be caused by a repeated minor trauma such as overuse of the shoulder joint and muscles or a single more significant trauma such as a fall.
In overuse type injuries, bursitis is often associated with impingement and tendonitis (inflammation) of the rotator cuff tendons.
Specifically, the sub acromial bursa lies between the coraco acromial ligament and the supraspinatus muscle and helps to reduce friction in this small space under the acromion.
Shoulder bursitis commonly presents with the following symptoms:
- Gradual onset of your shoulder symptoms over weeks or months.
- Pain on the outside of your shoulder.
- Pain may spread down your arm towards the elbow or wrist.
- Pain made worse when lying on your affected shoulder.
- Pain made worse when using your arm above your head.
- Painful arc of movement – shoulder pain felt between 60 – 90° of arm moving up and outwards.
- When your arm is by your side there is minimal pain and above 90° relief of pain.
- Shoulder pain with activities such as washing hair, reaching up to high shelf in the cupboard.
Back Pain
Lower back pain has many causes. Most lower back pain causes are musculoskeletal in origin and known as non-specific low back pain. Most commonly, these back injuries are caused by muscular strains, ligament sprains and joint dysfunction, particularly when pain arises suddenly during or following physical loading of the spine.
The good news is that you can take measures to prevent or lessen most back pain episodes. Your physiotherapist is an expert who treats and can help you to prevent low back pain.
Early diagnosis and treatment is the easiest way to recover quickly from lower back pain and to prevent a recurrence.
Causes:
- Ankylosing Spondylitis
- Back Muscle Pain
- Bulging Disc
- Core Stability Deficiency
- Degenerative Disc Disease
- Facet Joint Pain
- Fibromyalgia
- Muscle Strain (Muscle Pain)
- Osteitis Pubis
- Osteoporosis
- Overuse Injuries
- Pinched Nerve
- Pisiforms Syndrome
- Pregnancy Back Pain
- Sacroiliac Joint Pain
- Scheuermann’s Disease
- Sciatica
- Scoliosis
- Side Strain (Abdominal)
- Spinal Stenosis
- Spondylolisthesis
- Spondylosis (Back Stress Fracture)
- Spondylosis (Spine Arthritis)
- Stress Fracture
Lower Back Pain Exercises
With the correct lower back pain exercises and specific treatment guided by your physiotherapist, back pain relief is very achievable. Most severe lower back pain sufferers will recover within 4 to 6 weeks. However, this time can vary greatly as it depends on the nature of your back injury, the treatment plan that you develop with your physiotherapist, and how compliant you are with your treatment and lower back pain exercises.