SHOULDER PAIN – CAN IT BE BECAUSE OF SHOULDER OA

What is causing your shoulder pain? Is it Arthritis? How to tell? Going through certain symptoms and signs of shoulder pain can indicate whether a person has Arthritis or not. So, you have cartilage that covers the humerus and helps in reducing the friction of the joint motion, and acts as a cushion against weight loading. However, degeneration and inflammation of the cartilage is the main cause of shoulder pain, and it is also an indication of osteoarthritis.

Did you know? Approximately 2.2 million people in Australia suffer from osteoarthritis, and nearly 50% of them are aged above 65. It is forecasted that the number of people living with osteoarthritis will be doubled by 2030 in Australia.

When the cartilage starts to wear down, it can increase the amount of friction between bones, eventually leading to a condition when bones are touching each other. It is a very common and painful condition, especially among individuals over the age of 60. People with arthritic joints could hear the grinding, clicking, cracking noises of their shoulder bones.

One of the signs that can indicate shoulder OA is the limited motion of your shoulder. The motion that tends to be limited first and the worst is the external rotation, i.e., the ability to turn your arms sideways. Another way to assessing shoulder OA is by trying to move your hand above your head because people with Arthritis cannot raise their hand higher than their head.

Worldwide, Arthritis is considered to be among the leading causes of disability. While the condition can affect many joints of the body, the knee and shoulder are the most common ones. Traditional methods of treatment for osteoarthritis include applying ice on the joint, exercise, and compression. However, these are temporary pain relief methods, and getting surgery or some other invasive treatment is expensive and not a preferred method of choice.

Recently, transplantation of stem cells has been a common practice in treating patients with Shoulder osteoarthritis and served as a promising approach in addressing intractable musculoskeletal pain and neuropathic pain. Regenerative medicines have been found to be very effective in treating severe Shoulder Osteoarthritis, which does not respond to conventional medicine. Stem cell medicine is not only a cost-effective means for treating shoulder OA but has also been found to be more effective in resolving its symptoms.

References

Han, Y.H., Kim, K.H., Abdi, S. and Kim, T.K., 2019. Stem cell therapy in pain medicine. The Korean journal of pain, 32(4), p.248.

Kenihan, L., McTier, L., & Phillips, N. M. (2020). Patients’ expectations and experiences of stem cell therapy for the treatment of knee osteoarthritis. Health Expectations, 23(5), 1300-1309.

Abd-Elsayed, A. (2018). Stem cells for the treatment of knee osteoarthritis: a comprehensive review. Pain Physician, 21, 229-241.