Referred pain from neck to shoulder blade
In this video Dr. Castanet explains referred pain and provides a common example. Beware, many general physicians, chiropractors and physical therapists are tricked by the counter-intuitive nature of referred pain. When that happens they cannot help you with your pain, because they will direct their treatments to an area that is not the cause/source of your pain.
The healthcare professionals who understand this referred pain phenomenon and are not likely to be fooled by it, are pain physicians, physical medicine doctors, orthopedists and neurosurgeons. It is unfortunate that all physicians and providers, including those who need to know in order to provide effective non-surgical treatments, remain so ignorant of it. This results in the waste of time and money of patients with misdirected, ineffective treatment.
Most people are aware of referred pain from an organ/viscus like the heart, which can refer pain to the left neck, jaw and arm. But they are unaware that musculoskeletal structures also refer pain in patterns that can be misleading. These referred pain patterns from musculoskeletal structures have been mapped out by researchers, like Dr. Rene Calliet, who experimentally inject various tissues with benign agents like saline solution, including joints, to see what pain it provokes in people. So it is important for healthcare professionals who treat musculoskeletal pain to be familiar with these patterns, lest they misdiagnose such pain.
Since 2006 I have used a treatment, spinal decompression, to much more effectively treat all spinal problems, and my experience has validated these referred pain patterns because I can quickly see how people respond, for example, with improvement, when I direct effective treatment to their neck, which resolves their shoulder blade pain. So remember, if you have pain in your shoulder blade area, it is caused by a neck problem about 95% of the time. It is seldom caused by a shoulder blade problem or a thoracic problem because that region of your spine is much more rigid, with fewer physical demands that are likely to be injurious, hence painful.
If I can help you with your neck, back and spinal pain, call me at 404-558-4015.
