Waking Up With Shoulder Pain? Our Experts Can Help

When you crawl into bed at night to go to sleep, your body uses this time to rest and reset, which should help you feel pretty good in the mornings. Instead, you’ve been waking with shoulder pain, which isn’t the best way to start the day.

Our team here at Revive Spine and Pain Center tackles a wide range of joint issues, and we have no small amount of experience helping patients with shoulder pain. 

In our considerable experience, here are some of the more common conditions that can lead to shoulder pain in the morning. 

Rotator cuff issues

Your shoulders are inherently shallow ball-and-socket joints that rely on a tough band of tissue to keep your arms attached to your body. Called the rotator cuff, these tissues are formed by four muscles that come together to form a tendon that keeps your upper arm bone squarely in the socket.

Each year in the United States, more than 2 million people have issues with their rotator cuff, such as tendinitis and rotator cuff tears.

When these tissues become damaged, pain is certainly one symptom that crops up more often than not. And many patients report that the pain flares at night.

Shoulder bursitis

Another common shoulder issue that counts nighttime pain as one of the side effects is bursitis. To prevent friction between hard and soft tissues, your body contains more than 150 bursa sacs, including several in your shoulders.

If these sacs become irritated and inflamed, they can lead to pain, and this pain can flare at night, causing you to wake up with a sore shoulder.

Shoulder impingement

Your arms enjoy an incredibly wide range of motion, which means there’s considerable movement inside your shoulder joints. Some of this movement occurs in the space between the top of your shoulder (your acromion) and your rotator cuff. 

If this space narrows, your acromion can rub up against your rotator cuff and the bursa sac in this location, which leads to impingement.

As a result of this impingement, you can experience shoulder pain when you lift your arm, as well as pain and discomfort at night.

Sleeping in the wrong position

We would be remiss in not putting this last item on your list. If you’re sleeping on one side in an awkward position each night, you can stress your shoulder joint and wake with pain. 

So it might be a good idea to try sleeping on your back to see if that helps with your morning pain. To maintain this position while you sleep, place pillows on either side of your body to prevent you from rolling over in your sleep.

If you want a better start to your day than shoulder pain, we advise you to come see us so we can pinpoint the culprit and get you on the right road to relief. We have an extensive toolkit when it comes to shoulder pain, and we’re sure we can help with yours.

To get to the bottom of your nighttime and morning shoulder pain, please contact us at one of our New Jersey locations in Marlton, Hamilton Township, Northfield, or East Brunswick to schedule an appointment.