What causes shoulder and arm pain?
The cause of many instances of shoulder or arm pain is obvious. You do something to injure the arm or shoulder and immediately feel pain. Or you begin feeling the pain a day or so later. You may have broken a bone or dislocated your shoulder. Perhaps you strained tendons or ligaments by carrying too much weight for too long, by lifting something that was too heavy, overreaching or overexerting your arm–as when playing sports when you’re out of shape–or by keeping your arm in an awkward position, or even by sleeping on the shoulder. The resulting pain may range from an annoying ache to acute pain that makes it hard for you to use the injured arm. Fortunately, the majority of such injuries are seldom critical. But there are other, less-obvious causes of shoulder or arm pain. Each is distinguished by where it is felt, whether it comes on suddenly or over time, when it is at its worst, if the pain extends to other joints in your body, and if other symptoms–such as swelling, numbness, ti
