Left shoulder blade muscle... stinking, sharp, burning pain

[mightymouse23]

I get this extremely bad knot in my left shoulder blade muscle area....between the blade and my spinal chord area... when i stuff envelopes or cook or fish.. it gets excruciatingly bad.. i know its just one of the muscles.. but why is it ONLY the LEFT side all the time and how can i minimize the pain because it gets to where i cant hold my head up sometimes.  It was knotted so bad the other day, it started to make my neck have a numbing/stinging excruciating feeling going up my spine from the beginning sore spot.. i just dont know how to cure it...

[TC2766]

you may have something called snapping scapula syndrome. I suffer the exact same symptoms and that was my ultimate diagnosis. There is no cure. Steroid or nerve root block injections may help for a time. NSAIDS and muscle relaxers may lessen the pain a bit. Pain meds have not worked for me, not even opiates. They may also try seizure medications.

[Anthony35]

I think your right. I have had the pain in my right shoulder blade for 9 months. Chiropractor helped some and now my right trap is sore to massage. My posture is bad and I want to work on this for a while now. When I massage my trap I do feel the muscle tense up on my back and now sometimes all the way to my butt. Will check out these books thanks. Anything else you can think of please let me know. Thanks.

[PPNH]

Your case is classic to anyone who is familiar with trigger point therapy. What you are experiencing is an activated trigger point in your latissimus dorsi muscle which in turn has activated satellite trigger points in the triceps brachii and the flexor carpi ulnaris muscles.  These muscles are in the same pain reference zone.  What you need is a masseuse/masseur who is knowledgeable in trigger point therapy.

[karey939]

AHHHH this is EXACTLY what has been happening to me. In fact, in the shower this morning, I nearly vomited from the pain when I reached up to wash my hair, which I was able to do perfectly normally and pain free yesterday morning. What the.... well, by the time I got to work, which was very late, I blamed myself for sleeping wrong and picking up my son who is three in a funny way, etc. I could literally not tolerate the pain anymore. I have a pretty good pain tolerance. I too carried a backpack all through school, am a hiker, runner, am athletic, etc. I am 34 now, though, I have had these random pains for like seven years. It is EXCRUCIATING. Now that I am old though, I have time, money, and good insurance to figure this crap out. So, long story short, I was diagnosed today with Scoliosis. Apparently I have had this since I was a child. It is "mild." It does not feel MILD, of course. So... what this pain is, is the spine shifting causing stress on the muscles which either tear or fight back against the spine bones (forgive my lack of proper terms, I am exceptionally new to this), causing inflammation of the muscles, which pinches the select nerves in that region where my spine is affected by the scoliosis. Those nerves happen to run down my arm into my four fingers (the thumb is not really affected). I play the guitar. My hand is still primarily numb/tingly. I am souped up on major meds and I am still in very bad pain. I am pissed about this "late" diagnosis but glad that it took me 34 years to suffer this badly. So, the pain originates from a molten hot knot right below my left chicken wing/shoulder blade. This is the epicenter of hell. It then radiates pain waves in a radius about the size of a large drinking cup. My triceps muscle on my left arm feels like someone is ripping the muscle from the bone like deboning a cooked turkey looks like. There are no injuries to my arm or back, just this kind of neurological, intense, ghost pain. The doctor said it should take approx. 7 days for this episode to subside, but it is mainly because I have the steroid and muscle relaxers. Otherwise it could intensify first, take a much longer time, and cause more permanant damage. When this "episode" subsides I am going to see an osteopathic spine specialist to evaluate my remaining options. I do not want this to occur again. It has been debilitating. I work a lot, enjoy work, am necessary to my work, and can't even think straight in the kind of pain fog that I experienced today. See a specialist. You need muscle relaxers to stop the spasms and allow the knot to chill out. I am so sorry you also have this horrible pain. Mine feels like someone stabbed me with a molten-hot railroad spike. Good luck to you.

[JeanneneQuinn]

I read many posts but not all... I need to go to bed. :)

I KNOW WHAT IS CAUSING THIS PAIN! (at least mine) The answer came after 2 years, MRI w contrast, and MRI without contrast, a physical therapist muscle relaxers...

I noticed a pain almost under left shoulder blade / middle of back. It was dull on good days and sharp on bad days. I noticed that when I would rotate my shoulder I would hear a 'click' and I realized there was a correlation between the loudness of the click to how much pain I was having. Doctors told me it was a pulled muscle... I knew this was not it as muscles do not click and a pulled muscle after TWO years? Muscle relaxers and anti inflammatory meds did nothing. I still listened to the physical therapist and rotated my arm lots for exorcise. Long story short, I went to a ortho specialist, and he told me after 1 xray he knew exactly what it was and that was the easy part. The hard part he said, was fixing it.

I have SCRAPING SCAPULA SYNDROME which is where the muscle under my should joint is small....or in my case, about gone. And the sound I hear is the shoulder blade scraping the back of my ribs, the 'therapy' the others had
me doing was doing DAMAGE.  The muscle is deteriorated and so sits lower in the socket, throwing everything off. Learn how to strengthen that muscle slowly. I lay on the floor and use a soup can to lift.  You can look up more on SSS. It still hurts so bad. It's an injury often found with pitchers and rock climbers (which I am... Well WAS). It's been 4 years $ 2,000 out of pocket in insured med expenses, and still a battle (I'm 30 yr old female and busty which does not help the situation).

But at least the dr helped me discover and avoid some triggers. I also live with my heating pad. (make sure you get one that turns off automatically after 30 min. Or so. I have been burned by a cheap heating pad) I also take many hot baths and will be getting a hot tub. Best of luck everyone. It's an uphill battle.

My way of lessening the pain
Heating pad, hot baths, light and SPECIFIC strengthening exorcises, shoulders pulled up and back aka better posture,,, don't slouch and watch the computer/phone/iPad usage. Too much looking down in not good, lidocaine patches, do not sleep on your side but preferably your back and sit with your back right up against chairs and car seats.

[new_nicky80]

Hi

I have pain in my shoulder muscles at the back an the trigger point is just below the shoulder blades on both the sides. It started almost 4-5 yrs back but now its continuous and if i press those points below the shoulder blades i know thats the point which is paining the most and i feel relaxed also then. I went for a check couple of days back and doctors suggested some bone test and blood test to check for osteoporosis. Now before i really go for these tests i wanted to be doubly sure of its symptoms. If its really wat the doc has diagnosed.