Shoulder bursitis symptoms and treatment with 2 exercises

Shoulder bursitis is the most painful form of shoulder pain you can have. Fortunately, inflammation in the shoulder is treatable and quite rare.

This article explains what you need to do to get rid of your shoulder bursitis quickly by taking anti-inflammatory drugs and doing these two physical therapy exercises.
In addition, I discuss the cause and symptoms of bursitis in the shoulder and how you can use these symptoms to distinguish shoulder bursitis from other forms of shoulder pain.

The diagnose is give more often as a cause of shoulder pain than it is. It leads to unnecessary injections in the shoulder, which in turn causes damage to the shoulder muscles, but not a faster recovery. Anti-inflammatory drugs work just as well for the pain, but without the residual damage.

But if you follow this step-by-step plan, you can limit the duration of your recovery to 6-8 weeks without residual complaints.

So read on quickly.

• What is the cause of shoulder bursitis?
• Symptoms of a shoulder bursitis
• Treatment of shoulder bursitis with 2 physical therapy exercises

There are several bursae in your shoulder. The main bursa is the subacromial bursa. It is the bursa that lies under the roof of your shoulder blade (acromion). The bursa protects your supraspinatus and other rotator cuff muscles from damage.

When your shoulder muscles become irritated, the bursa fills with fluid, forming a cushion between the bone and muscle. It is not bursitis but a bursa filling. You often see this in people with shoulder pain. The bursa filling is a consequence and not a cause of the pain. The reason is irritation or overload of the shoulder muscles. Yet this is often incorrectly referred to as bursitis.

The difference between a bursa filling and bursitis of the shoulder is that there are inflammatory factors present with inflammation, which are not present with a bursa filling.

Bursitis is caused by a fall or severe other strain on the shoulder. In addition, the cause may lie in calcium, which was already present in the shoulder and, for unclear reasons, ended up in the bursa. The body dissolves this calcium through an inflammatory reaction.

That is why people who get bursitis in their shoulder are often already familiar with shoulder pain.

Sometimes, it’s not clear what triggers shoulder bursitis.

Also read: 5 Shoulder pain exercises | Complete treatment plan

The symptoms of shoulder bursitis are obvious.

The first thing you notice is the degree of pain. People with bursitis all give their pain a 10 and higher if possible. The pain is often unbearable for patients.

In addition, the mobility of the shoulder is minimal. People with bursitis in their shoulder cannot move their arm more than 2 inches in any direction. If they move their arm further, the pain is simply unbearable.

When you can lift your arm to shoulder height and start to hurt, you don’t have bursitis, but ‘normal shoulder pain’ where the shoulder muscles impinge.

Also, people cannot sleep lying down, but they sleep sitting because then the pressure in the shoulder is the least great, and the pain is slightly less severe.

Furthermore, the shoulder can show symptoms that are generally associated with an inflammatory reaction. These are swelling and redness of the shoulder.

Also read: Shoulder impingement syndrome treatment with 4 exercises.

For the treatment of bursitis in the shoulder, it is essential first to remove the inflammation. Doctors would like to give a corticosteroid injection for this. However, research shows that such an injection does not improve recovery in the long term but causes additional damage to the shoulder muscles, leading to more shoulder complaints.

My advice would be to take anti-inflammatory drugs, such as naproxen. These are available through the doctor and also ensure that the severe pain disappears within a few days. What then remains is the pain of the damaged muscles due to the inflammatory response.

You can treat this pain by training the muscles and massaging the shoulders at the front, where the muscles hurt the most. By massaging, you promote the blood supply, which speeds up recovery.

I’ll now show you which 2 physical therapy exercises you should do to relieve the pain caused by your bursitis. The recovery from bursitis takes about 6-8 weeks.

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The first exercise aims to strengthen the supraspinatus muscle. It is the muscle that helps you lift your arm sideways. It is the most affected muscle in shoulder complaints.

Perform the exercise as follows:

• Stand with your arms at your sides
• Raise your arms sideways until you feel pain
• Slowly lower your arms
• Repeat 10 times
• Do this 3 times

You can also see the execution of the exercise in this video.

In the beginning, you can’t raise your arm that high, but the more you do the exercise, you will notice that it gets better and better. Do not raise your healthy arm higher than your painful arm, as this will cause you to lift your painful arm higher as well. That results in an impingement of the muscle in the shoulder joint, which causes more irritation.

As the shoulder muscle gets stronger again, this will come naturally.
Repeat the exercise 2 times a day. When the shoulder’s mobility is fully restored, you can slowly increase the number of repetitions to 20 and possibly even use a small weight.

The second exercise focuses on training the infraspinatus muscle in your shoulder. It is the muscle that lies over your shoulder blade and supports and stabilizes the movements of your shoulder.

The infraspinatus can also be affected as a result of bursitis in the shoulder. It can be directly due to damage to the muscle due to the inflammation or because the supraspinatus is weakened, and your infraspinatus takes over the load and becomes stiff.

You can train your infraspinatus in the following way:

• Lie on your healthy side
• Bend the elbow of your painful arm 90 degrees and place your elbow on your side
• Rotate your arm outwards, raising your forearm
• Repeat 10 times
• Do this 3 times

You can also see the execution of the exercise in this video.

In the beginning, you will feel a nagging pain in your shoulder, which can radiate into your upper arm. Your arm may also feel tired. When you repeat the exercise regularly, you will experience that this fatigue slowly disappears. Try to do the exercise 2 times a day.