Why Do I Have a Dull Ache in My Shoulder?

This can be a lot of reasons in our practice. Specializing in shoulders, seeing thousands for years.

The three most common diagnoses for shoulder pain are, number one, rotator cuff pathology, which is tendinitis or tearing of the rotator cuff.

Which one is it? You don’t know until you come in and see us. We have to do some imaging, and it’s very difficult to figure out just by talking or reading. You have to look at the patient, the story, and the imaging.

The second would be arthritis, where you have some wear and tear in the cartilage.

The third would be the tearing of the labrum. Much of this is age-dependent—how old you are, what you have been doing, etc.

The diagnosis of a 25-year-old is different from that of a 75-year-old, but trying to figure out the problem—why is it hurting? That’s why we have a job. Our job’s number one part is figuring out the problem. Not all doctors are equal in figuring out a correct diagnosis. The second part is how to treat it.