Summit County Labor News

"Anyone can do it," the man said.
So you painted the living room walls and ceiling yourself. It looked fine, too, but the next day you had a painful shoulder that just about ruined all your pride of achievement. You decided, perhaps, that you weren't made for that kind of work, and, in a way, you were right. It's one of the many troubles we made for ourselves when we decided to get up on our hind legs and use our front paws for hands.
Hooked up between your shoulder blade and the big bone of the upper arm is a little muscle with a job that is sometimes too big for it. Its long name -- supraspinatus -- isn't much help when it has to work all day keeping the arm bone in its socket against the pull of gravity. Holding the arms up and out puts a constant strain on the muscle and its tendon. And every arm movement we make pinches the tendon between the shoulder blade and arm bone.
So you see, it wasn't surprising that the unaccustomed work of painting gave you a painful shoulder. Acute bursitis usually cures itself quickly, but it can develop into a condition that disables its victims for months or years. We tend to baby the sore shoulder, when the best cure is to keep it moving. Lack of motion may cause adhesions to form, and then the shoulder becomes practically frozen in its socket.
Of course, every painful shoulder does not mean bursitis. The safe course is to consult your doctor if shoulder pain does not clear up quickly.
As an exercise for bursitis doctors frequently suggest bending over with the arm relaxed and then swinging it like a pendulum from front to back, side to side and round and round. You can do this in a bending position even though, standing straight, you couldn't move the arm because of the pain. You may feel foolish, but in a few weeks your shoulder will probably be as good as new.