Shoulder Pain At Night While Sleeping – Shoulder pain at night is a common and potentially debilitating problem. For some of you, the pain is worse when you change your sleeping position. For others, you will complain of constant pain that doesn’t seem to go away. Sleeping with your arm under your head can be very difficult if you have shoulder pain at night. Many of you will eventually find that sleeping on your back or in a recliner is the only way to get enough sleep. This post will review the most common causes of shoulder pain at night. We will also review some medications that can help shoulder pain that gets worse at night.
If you have shoulder pain at night, you know how debilitating it can be! Inflammation in the shoulder and often in the area of the rotator cuff muscle is the main cause of pain at night. The specific structure involved is called the subacromial bursa, a fluid-filled sac that covers the rotator cuff.
Shoulder Pain At Night While Sleeping
As many of you know, no matter which side you try to sleep on, you will wake up with shoulder pain. Eventually, this starts to seriously affect the quality of your life and your mental health.
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Rotator cuff inflammation and shoulder bursitis are some of the main reasons why you can’t lie down and sleep at night. the
It is a small bag at the root of the rotator cuff. A healthy bursa lubricates the roots of the rotator cuff in the shoulder to reduce friction between the rotator cuff and the shoulder bone.
The bursa can become inflamed due to problems other than the rotator cuff. When irritated, the bursa can be responsible for most of your nighttime pain.
Bursitis pain is usually on the outside or front of the shoulder. It is usually not above the wrist. Most people will complain of a dull ache. Your partner may feel a grinding or pressing sensation in your shoulder. Grinding is usually caused by a rupture of the bursa, not the bone.
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Few of you will remember what hurt you in the night. Most of the time there was no obvious damage. This makes shoulder pain at night very disturbing. You cannot know the event that caused it.
Most people who wake up one day with shoulder pain have done nothing wrong. The frequency of shoulder pain increases as we age. Frozen shoulder is a classic example. Frozen shoulder is the most common cause of pain at night. When you suffer from frozen shoulder, you will have a hard time sleeping at night. This is due to severe inflammation in the shoulder joint itself. We often don’t know what causes frozen shoulder. The treatment of frozen shoulder is discussed at length in this post.
Of course, recent sports injuries or rotator cuff injuries can also cause severe pain at night. Rotator cuff injuries can also cause secondary inflammation of the bursa. Simply put, if you were injured from a fall and injured the rotator cuff, the bleeding from that injury can cause swelling in the bursa that rests on the rotator cuff.
Read on below and we’ll cover ways to get comfortable and hopefully sleep through the night.
Read Reasons Why, And Ways To Relive Shoulder Pain At Night
Here is a list of common problems that cause shoulder pain at night. You can follow the links to read about each diagnosis, or you can keep scrolling down to find the medications to try to relieve the pain.
As you can see above, there are many different types of rotator cuff problems. One of the most common causes of rotator cuff pain is a process called rotator cuff tendinosis. This means that your rotator cuff is starting to wear, tear and weaken.
If the rotator cuff begins to weaken enough, it can begin to tear. A small tear is called a partial tear of the rotator cuff. The hard surface of the rotator cuff tendon from incomplete tears can irritate or burn the bursa that sits on top of the rotator cuff. Your back can also hurt with other activities… but pain at night is what usually prompts you to call our office.
Some of you have injured or fallen on your arm, and now shoulder pain is keeping you up at night. For those who have night pain after an injury, a more severe full rotator cuff tear is possible. You should have your shoulder checked sooner rather than later.
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The goal of treating people with severe pain at night is to reduce inflammation in the shoulder, especially within the subacromial bursa. For most of you, this will be a temporary issue. A short-term anti-inflammatory medication, perhaps an injection and physical therapy, will allow you to sleep well again in a few weeks. For some of you, the pain will continue, despite these usually effective methods.
It’s midnight, and you’re having trouble sleeping. A combination of the following medications can help relieve pain:
Yes, a heating pad. When used correctly (don’t sleep with it on), and often, a heating pad can provide amazing relief. If your shoulder is keeping you up and you can’t get into a shoulder specialist, this is a good place to start. Many people think that ice is good for this type of inflammation…but a surprising number of times you will feel better with a heating pad. They should be used for 15 minutes and then removed for 15 minutes… you can continue 15 minutes on/15 minutes longer as needed.
Sleeping in a semi-reclining position can help many people with severe shoulder pain sleep. You can also prop yourself up on a bed or bed with several pillows to raise yourself up to 45 degrees. Putting a
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Wrapping a towel behind the shoulder to push forward can also help reduce the pain you feel.
Capsaicin is an over-the-counter oil or salve. It acts as an anti-irritant. Capsaicin causes a burning sensation. It can cause real burns in some people, so be careful and follow directions. When you apply capsaicin to the area where you feel pain, scientists believe that the irritation of the skin reduces the chemical from your nerves. By reducing that chemical, it is thought to relax the nerves around the bursa and rotator cuff in the shoulder.
Compression Ice Pack: These ice packs seem to help reduce pain at night and help you sleep. Many patients have reported over the years that these hands have been helpful. Also, heating the pads is also helpful. Some people like ice and some people like hot. There is a small chance of harm, so try everything until you find what works for you. These ice compression wraps are also helpful in improving your pain after a rotator cuff injury or surgery.
When you are in our office, we will discuss options for improving your pain at night. Not being able to sleep is very stressful, so you may want to consider an injection. A cortisone or steroid injection into the bursa can be one of the fastest ways to get great relief.
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Injections into the subacromial bursa, the area on your rotator cuff that usually gets inflamed, can help in some conditions. We know that the cortisone injection is not the best idea. Placing injections close to the roots can lead to increased root shrinkage.
However, cortisone injections into the bursa can be helpful in people who are very unhappy because they cannot sleep. These injections usually start working within a day and continue to work for several weeks to months, so you can start to recover from sleep.
Kinesio tape seems to work well in many situations to help relieve pain that people experience at night and even with other activities during the day. The tape may work through a complex feedback loop with nerves in the spinal cord and brain. The registration mode does not seem to be important. Kinesio tape can be purchased online without a prescription.
Physical therapy to repair the rotator cuff is helpful in the long term for improving shoulder pain. There are patients who do not have severe pain at night, so we start with physical therapy and try to avoid injections. If the pain is worse at night then we usually try an injection first to calm things down and then follow it up with a course of physical therapy soon after. This treatment is usually taken 2-3 times a week for 4-6 weeks.
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Most of you can learn the exercises yourself to be able to continue the exercises yourself. Staying active, even after completing physical therapy, is important to reduce the risk of pain returning.
Many patients
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