Have Shoulder Pain At Night?
Get Relief & Figure Out Why

Waking up with shoulder pain in the morning is not how anyone wants to start their day but it’s a regular occurrence for many people. This can be frustrating because you think you’re getting a good night’s sleep and you wake up with a throbbing shoulder. It can feel like it’s just not getting better and you may be taking pain killers for it. Pain killers can help with the pain in the moment and reduce some of the inflammation, but they just mask the symptoms and don't address the root cause of the pain. Until you address the root cause of your shoulder pain, it will continue to hurt and you won’t be able to get the relief you’re looking for.

Why You Have Shoulder Pain At Night

If you’re experiencing shoulder pain at night or when you wake up in the morning, it’s most likely due to poor biomechanics. What does that mean exactly? Biomechanics is the study of forces acting on and generated within the body. If you have poor posture, it has a domino effect on all of the muscles and tendons in the area and can create a lot of pain with the pressure and tension it creates.

When patients come to us with shoulder pain at night or when they wake up in the morning, it’s most likely due to them using a head-forward posture without realizing it. This posture creates a rounded, hunched forward position that shifts the shoulder forward and this can result in neck, trapezius, and shoulder pain. This posture pinches the supraspinatus tendon & muscle, the subacromial bursa, and the biceps tendon which is what you’re feeling when you wake up with shoulder pain.

Many of us work on laptops or at desks and spend a lot of time looking down at our phones, so as modern humans, we all have poor biomechanical posture to some degree. Correct posture helps us keep bones and joints in correct alignment so that our muscles are used correctly, decreasing the abnormal wearing of joint surfaces that can result in degenerative arthritis and joint pain. It also reduces the stress put on the ligaments that hold our spinal joints together, minimizing the likelihood of injury.

Correct posture can also help to prevent muscle strain, back and muscle pain, and overuse injuries and disorders. In addition to all of these benefits, correct posture improves circulation and digestion. When you have incorrect posture, you compress your gastrointestinal system and this can produce bad posture side effects like acid reflux and constipation.

Our posture is often neglected but it does a lot for us. Many of us spend our days sitting at desks that aren’t ergonomic, sitting in our cars, and looking down at laptops and phones which can train our muscles to move into a forward head posture without us realizing it. The forward head posture consists of hunched shoulders, a forward-jutting chin, and an upward tilted head. This posture is extremely common and bad posture side effects include neck, shoulder, and back pain in many of our patients.

Shoulder pain at night or in the morning is a symptom of the way we spend our time but the good news is it’s easy to fix. Simple stretches, posture exercises, and seeing a chiropractor can help you. Our job is to guide the body to do what it knows how to do. If we work on the trigger points and loosen up some of the tightness around the joint and we show the patient the right type of posture and stabilization exercises, your body knows what to do from there. Most people learn how to improve their biomechanics quickly once they become aware of the issue and as a result, we’re able to help them get results quickly. 

Get Relief From Shoulder Pain At Night

If you come into our office complaining of shoulder pain at night or when you wake up in the morning, we’ll work on loosening up the tight structures in the trapezius, peg, biceps tendon, and supraspinatus. The goal of this is to release the tension that the tendons and muscles in the area are holding so you no longer wake up with nagging shoulder pain.

If you have had shoulder adjustments in the past and it hasn’t provided adequate relief for your night time and morning shoulder pain, it’s possible that the chiropractor you’re seeing is not using all of the available treatments. We combine the shoulder adjustment with e-stim & ice, ultrasound, and sometimes dry needling. By using all of these different treatment methodologies we’re able to get better results and provide quick relief for our patients. If your chiropractor is not doing that and you’re still in pain, it’s time to find a new one.

Are you having shoulder pain at night or when you wake up in the morning? You don’t have to just deal with this throbbing, annoying pain.  Schedule your appointment with one of our chiropractors by clicking here or calling (410) 296-7700 to get relief from your shoulder pain. We can’t wait to help you feel better faster!