Our shoulder and hip joints are two of our most frequently used joints and are prone to a wide range of possible injuries
Oftentimes people are completely unaware of what caused their pain, maybe it is a weekend warrior who overused the joint in an athletic competition, an unfortunate participant in a car accident, a person lifting too much weight at work or home, or a grandmother who fell asleep holding their grandchild in one position all night.
Never Ending Story- WHAT IS CAUSING MY LEG PAIN?
Due to the complexity of the joints and the vast number of possible causes, it is important that you see someone who is trained in these areas. Typically, your healthcare provider will use a combination of a physical examination and advanced imaging to get to the root cause of your problems. This is done by finding the location of the pain, aggravating or alleviating factors, type of pain sensation, and other symptoms such as swelling, skin changes, and bruising as other tools to assist in the diagnosis. If this list of possible causes wasn’t confusing enough, it has also been shown that arm and leg pain is often caused by “referred pain”. This pattern of pain is often used to describe the sensation of pain down the left arm that people feel during the start of a heart attack.
Well That Is So Generalized!
Another example of a referred pain pattern is the pain that an inflamed gall bladder causes under the right shoulder blade. Frequently, doctors see patients who present with arm and leg pain that is being referred from nerve irritation that begins at the spine. If the spaces where the nerves leave the spine become narrowed due to the vertebrae being out of position, the nerve becomes irritated and often produces pain down its entire path. The pain patterns associated with sciatica are a good example of this mechanism.