Left shoulder pain/ dull ache/burning- help

[Haileys Mom]

I am hoping someone can provide some insight. Two months ago, while at work (sit at a microscope for 8 hrs. a day for 10 yrs. now), I noticed some twinges in my L breast. I just assumed hormonal, but then I started getting twinges in my L shoulder, which turned into a dull aching and sometimes burning sensation. The area that it started out in was the side of the shoulder in the back, like under the arm. Imagine lifting your arm up, and right beneath your armpit, you rub the vertical area underneath. Now, two months later, the pain has progressed to sometimes on the top of my arm, the muscle. I seem to notice it more when I'm at my desk working.

Dr. visits have not diagnosed the problem. So far I've had a diagnostic mammogram (good) and a chest xray (good). The chest xray showed some slight curvature to the spine, but other than that, good. Of course because I've had some tingles and shooting sensations in my left breast, my mind starts to "connect" the two and worry that it is cancer. Dr. says that is highly unlikely and that it sounds like muscles or nerves, myofascial pain, etc.

Each day I wake up thinking positively, but then the pain rears its head and I start to worry again. Why isn't it going away? I can't figure out what's going on.

I'm 38 years old and have a one year old, that I am picking up constantly. I have a sit down job at a microscope that I am in a fixed position. Could poor posture be to blame? This is so strange. Sometimes, the area itches and the back of my shoulder blade itches, too. Tingles and twinges once in a while. What should I do?

[IM2stressed]

--Pectoralis Major Pectoralis major is the “major muscle of the chest.” The shoulder, arm, and chest pain of this muscle suggest serious disease. In women, breast pain is feared to be due to breast cancer and patients may be sent for repeated mammograms (ironically, exposing them to additional radiation).
Tight pectorals can also cause shoulder and chest pain extending down the arm to below the elbow. In both men and women, this pattern (especially when on the left side) can be terrifyingly similar to the pain of angina and heart attack. Pectoralis major is strained or shortened by: Hunching shoulders forward, sitting or sleeping with arms crossed on chest, typing / keyboarding, sword work.--   from ROUND EARTH PUBLISHING (www.round-earth.com)

So, ladies, sit up straight! Wear good bras. Never cross your arms, quit your desk job, take some of that crap you dont need OUT of your purse, have your husbands carry your infants and QUIT fencing, too! Above all, I will try to practice what I preach and remember what the birthing coach tried to teach me when I gave birth to my now-5-year-old: BREATHE! Take minutes out for yourself to do something for YOU. You're no good to anyone if your body is all tense and literally a ball full of knots. Read if you miss it. Take a nap. Learn to waterpaint. Try writing a poem and laugh at your rediculous rhymes. Take a boating course even if you never own a boat. Whatever! Find something that works for you and do it ("as long as it's not at the computer" I say as I type!!!) Tension stress in your neck, back, arms and chest will make you miserable and the more stress you have the more stress you have in your muscles. It's taken awhile to get there and, sorry, but it will take awhile for it to go away. Taking aleve or tylenol may help you sleep but it wont get rid of the chronic bad habits we've formed to put it there in the first place. Make good choices, ladies. I'm trying to do the same. XOXOXO, -single mom with stress pain who is now dealing with the panic disorder and high blood pressure & heartrate that the stress pain caused. The more years you "live with it" or "suffer through it" without fixing it the more symptoms and traumas you will put yourself through. You all KNOW the computer is no good for you. Believe it or not, I even know now that talking on the phone with my left ear all the time has helped mess up my spine and neck too! CHANGE EARS! Weird that this is such a hard thing to do...the left ear is totally just one more habit I'm trying to change. Look at these little things and- REALLY- sit/stand up straight! This helps your back, neck, total posture. Good luck all! Take care of you.

[Reneerd]

I have all of these same pains described exactly to the T. Starting on my left breast as a tingling, then onto my shoulder blade and down my left side and arm. It all started for me when my husband was diagnosed with cancer. I was put on anxiety meds and anti depressants. The anti depressants seem to have more side effects than I really care to have. I'd almost rather just be sad and feel normal otherwise. I had a nerve test done a few months before my husbands diagnosis because I was having carpal tunnel syndrome in my right arm. They tested both arms only to find I actually have it in both arms. Carpal tunnel stems from your neck and if it goes untreated can have these symptoms we all are having. Not to say everyone has carpal tunnel here, but that appears to be my issue and the nerve test showed the damage. Sometimes when I mop my kitchen floor I notice the motion really hurts under my arm pit, or if I do something like rake leaves.

[laurenh17]

Oh my gosh this is AMAZING! I thought I was going crazy and I was the only one.... I am a freshman in college and I started having these chest pains/shoulder pains my junior year in high school. Its a burning annoying sensation by my shoulder blade and it seems to never go away. Im hoping just not thinking about it and FREAKING ourselves out will make it better.

Please let me know if you learn anything!

[smacamillion]

I wanted to also mention that my father was diagnosed with Rheumatoid arthritis and then later gout a few years before my problems started.  

His first diagosis was made a while after he went to the emergency room because he thought he was having a heart attack (this symptom was mentioned in earlier posts).  It was a sudden onset of symptoms.  Since then he has been treated for RA, but now just for gout.  he also has type II diabetes.  

I have sometimes experienced the same symptoms he described when his first started (right after his mother died).

I have noticed that I feel ok sometimes until I have had coffee, so I wonder if caffine is a trigger or causes dehydration, which triggers.  I have read that increasing vitamen C can help with gout.  Vitament D has been mentioned.  

As I am sitting here typing, I noticed I am pulling my shoulders up and tightening my neck muscles in the back of my neck...up to ears...I have also noticed these problems are more pronounced when I am cold and my muscles tense up...

I hope we can all put the pieces of the puzzle together...we were not meant to live this way.

Love to all,

Sherry

[smacamillion]

This may be the longest running post I have yet seen...Doctors need to read these...could help us find a solution, although they wouldn't make as much money then right?  I am 46 and have been having this same problem since about 4 years ago when my husband had a leg injury and I basically became a pack mule for several months.  

I am pretty sure I injured myself (over that period of time)...I was under enormous stress and the stress continued for years (partly because my husband lost his job because of his injury).  I had already been under stress before the incident.

I believe the key factors to this type of pain are:

ongoing stress

working on computers

society's expectations that women need to do more and carry the emotional and physical burdens of others and their families

Suggested solutions:

start treating yourself like the queen that you are

start saying NO

Realize that you can't and shouldn't have to do it all!

I have decided to implement these solutions for myself, and while my pain has not gone away, I have noticed it shifting.  

I know it is hard to do these things, but for those of you who have gone from doc to doc to doc and had mri and procedures...have you tried treating yourself better?  My instincts tell me this is the solution...take time out at least once a week to give yourself peace rest and pampering.  

Humans were not phyiscally designed to live the way we are living...we are surrounded by electricity...We absorb it and the kind we are surrounded by is not healthy.

All the best to everyone who has posted!
Sherry Fontaine (***@****)

[pain77]

Me too I have the same problem am tired of it, sometimes I keep it to myself am tierd of complaining about it, but I shouldn't feel these pain and dullness, this been going on over 2 years it's not normal..