How to Get Rid of Shoulder Blade Pain

Hey guys, Dr. Cipperoni here from Catalyst Health. Today I want to talk about a really common complaint that I see here in practice, and that is pain along the shoulder blade. A lot of times people come in and it feels like a really hard knot or something that they’ve had there for awhile. They just can’t get the pain to go away. They rub it out on the lacrosse ball. They foam roll it, but no matter what they do while they’re sitting, standing, walking, the pain is constantly always there.

One common thing that a lot of people don’t consider with this pain is that it’s actually being referred from the neck, possibly from a nerve root or from a disc pinching on a nerve root. Pain can refer from these little tiny nerve roots in the neck that get pinched by a disc and that pain can refer down the shoulder blade. Because of where it’s located, being far away from the neck, we don’t generally associate it being caused from the neck.

If you’re having this type of pain, one quick test you can do is (if you’re having it on the right side) to go ahead and just bend your head to the right, because what that does is that actually starts to put more pressure on that disc on the right side, when you bend the head to the right. If you hang out there for just a little bit and then go back just a little, not all the way, and just hang out there for about 20, 30 seconds, and see if that actually recreate some of that pain, that could be really indicative that it’s coming from a disc in the neck that’s irritating one of the nerve roots up there.

Likewise, if you’re at the desk for a long time, and you’re sitting and you get that really forward head posture as you’re working, what that’s doing is that’s further pushing the disc to put more pressure on the nerve root causing more of that pain and irritation you might be getting along that shoulder blade region.

One exercise (if you are having this pain) that I want you to try are chin retractions. This actually helps to take a disc that might’ve moved out of place, herniated or bulged in the neck, and start to pull some of that fluid, that’s called the nuclear material, back into the disc and put that disc in the right spot. You’ not going to do 10 reps and it’s going to go away completely. We need repetitive movement because if you think about something like this, it didn’t develop overnight. So to get rid of the pain completely, you’re going to have to be really consistent and really diligent with this movement.

All I want you to do is if you think of that forward head posture, I want you to do the exact opposite movement. You’re going to push head and neck back and then relax. These are called chin retractions. Make a double chin, or in my case maybe a few more chins, and you should feel a nice stretch along the back of the neck and through the muscles there as well. Again, that movement is helping to start push that disc back into the proper spot.

Give that a try. If that relieves your pain, even after doing just 30, 40 of them, continue to do that, continue to do sets of 10 throughout the day. The more you find yourself sitting at the desk, make sure you’re doing that exercise so that this doesn’t get any worse.

Thanks for watching again. This is Dr. Cipperoni from Catalyst Health. If you’re having this type of pain and you want to have it looked at and evaluated further, we’re right off of 101 in Leucadia. Go ahead and give us a call at (760) 334-3699 or comment below if you have any questions. Thank you.