When you have tightness in your neck and shoulders, you might massage or tap the tight area and feel better and you could raise your shoulder higher right after that. Check a minute later how high you can raise your shoulder. It should back to the same height as before massaging or tapping or you can only raise your shoulder lower than before.

So please try the following self-care method. But the most important thing is do it gently. If you can do this self-care gently, you should feel the improvement, but if you do it with strong stimulation, the same thing I talked above happens.

If you already learned this self-care at the clinic, please review where to hold and how gentle you have to apply the stimulation to make better results.

Gentle twisting of your hand loosens and strengthens the neck, shoulder and arm

I often teach my patients this self-care for their homework. This self-care is easy and effective, but if you can't do it gently, it doesn't work. It is important to do this as gentle as you think it seems like not working. It is interesting to check which makes your body better, strong stimulation or light stimulation. This self-care focuses on more neck and shoulder area, but can change the tightness in your low back if you can do it gently. 

He came to the clinic because his brother’s groin pain got better by acupuncture treatment.
 
The patient is 17-year-old male who have had pain in his left shoulder since he fell down and hit his left shoulder while playing hockey 2 weeks ago. When he raises his left shoulder and stretches his left shoulder backward.
 
[Test]
I had him stand up and raised his arm horizontally and pressed the arm with my hand. The strength of his left arm was weak.
 
When he raised his arm from the side of his body, he can only raise his arm a little above horizontal level and he couldn’t raise his arm vertically from the front and complained about pain.
 
[Treatment]
I had him lie on his right side and checked for tender points with my finger pressure. There were tender points on his neck, around his left shoulder blade and his left chest. I needled some acupuncture points, confirmed the tender points disappeared and gave subtle stimulation to the needles moving his left arm.
 
The range of motion of his shoulder got better and pain with the movement also got better, so I left the needles in for 10 minutes.
 
I came back to the room and checked the strength of his left, but it was still weak, so I gave the treatment to strengthen his left arm. I confirmed his left arm got stronger and asked him to move his left arm. There was no pain in his left shoulder with any movement, so I finished the treatment of his shoulder pain by this session.

There are a lot of people who hurt their shoulders or upper back while walking their dogs.
 
The patient is a man in his 80s.
After he took his dog for a walk yesterday, the inside of his right shoulder blade started to hurt. He couldn’t sleep well because of the pain in the area last night.
 
1st Treatment
When he lay on his back, his right shoulder was floating higher than the left side and he complained about pain in the right side of his upper back. I gave him acupuncture to remove the pain from his neck to the inside of his right shoulder blade.
 
2nd Treatment (3days later)
He reported that the pain inside the shoulder blade was less and he could sleep at night without pain. I gave him acupuncture to remove pain inside the shoulder blade and loosen the area. After the treatment, there was more flexibility when I pressed his shoulder from the front to the back on the treatment table.
 
3rd Treatment (4 days later)
He reported that the pain inside the shoulder blade disappeared. His right shoulder which had been floating from the table higher than his left shoulder was at the same level as his left shoulder and there was flexibility when I pressed it toward the treatment table. I didn’t give him acupuncture for his upper back this day, though I treated his chronic hip joint pain that he had complained from the last treatment.

Check the other cases treated by acupuncture: Click here.

​Tele-Acupuncture is a kind of Telemedicine not to offer consultations but to offer treatment at a distance using visual information and the theory of acupuncture medicine.

​This is a case treated with Tele-Acupuncture showing what is expected with this treatment method.
​
The patient was a man in 80s who had had acute high blood pressure due to heart problems. His blood pressure lowered and became stable and there were no symptoms related to his chest. This time his complaints were limited range of motion in his left shoulder and pain in his left ankle.
 
When he tried to bring his left arm behind his back, his shoulder hurt and couldn’t bring his arm behind his back at all. First, I scanned and regulated the energy starting from the center line and then both sides of his torso, having him sit facing to me. I asked him to check his shoulder. The range of motion of his shoulder got a little better.
 
I scanned and treated around his neck and shoulder and then between the shoulder blades concentrating my focus deep in his body. I asked him to check his shoulder again. The range of motion got much improved and he could bring his left arm behind his back as far as his right arm.
 
Next, I asked him where he felt pain in his ankle. He said it didn’t hurt with movements at that time, but hurt outside of his left ankle when he pressed with his finger.
 
I asked him to show me his left leg and ankle, putting his left foot on the chair. I scanned from his left knee to his foot and removed the energy from where the energy was stagnated and supplied energy to where was needed. I asked him to press around his left ankle where he felt pain before. Since he couldn’t find painful points, I finished the session at this point.

Tele-Acupuncture is a kind of Telemidicine that is scientific long distance treatment using visual information and the theory of Acupuncture medicine.

​The following is a case of Tele-Acupuncture treatment.

​A woman in her 40s was complaining about the pain in her right neck and shoulder area to her right chest when she moved her neck since 5 days ago.
 
First, I asked her to move her neck. When she turned her neck to the right, looked down and tilted her head to both sides, she felt pain in her right shoulder to her right chest.
 
I scanned and regulated the energy on the center line of her body with finger-needles through the screen, while she was sitting on a chair, facing to me. Then I asked her to check if she still felt pain by moving her neck. She said she still felt pain when she tilt her head to the right.
 
So this time I scanned and regulated the energy on her right side from the neck to lower abdomen and then on her left side. I asked her to check again and she didn’t feel any pain around her right shoulder to her right chest when she tilted her head to the right.
 
At this point, there were no pain, but I asked her to turn around and show her back to me. I scanned the center line and both sides of her back and regulated the energy, especially around her low back to buttocks because she told me she had had pain in her right hip to leg the day before this session, though  there was no pain at the time of the session.
 
2 days later she had the second session. She still felt tightness on her right shoulder to upper back with turning and tilting her head to the right, though pain in her right chest disappeared.
 
So I did the same treatment. When I finished the treatment on her front side, the tightness from her right shoulder to her upper back with the movement of her neck was already gone.
 
I also scanned and regulated the energy on her back and finished the course of Tele-Acupuncture treatment for the pain in her right neck, shoulder and chest.

​Book and try the effect of Tele-Acupuncture: Online Appointment

​For more information about Tele-Acupuncture, click HERE!

​A patient who usually comes to my clinic for low back pain or menstrual pain came for pain in the shoulder muscle where flu shot had been injected. She had had the flu shot 10 days ago and since then, she was not able to raise her left arm due to pain in the area where flu shot had been injected and she felt tingling sensation in all her left fingers the day before.
 
When I checked the area, there were some tender points on the muscle so that the pain was a side-effect of the injection.
 
After the overall treatment, I relieved the pain on the muscle using an acupuncture point around the neck and asked her to raise her left arm. But she couldn’t, so I checked her shoulder again and found painful points in the shoulder joint.
 
It seemed like the pain in the shoulder was not related to the flu shot, but more like simple shoulder joint problem. So I checked her upper back and found a tight point along the shoulder blade. I asked her to raise her left arm with pressing the tight point. This time she could raise her arm. So I tapped the tightness with my tool to loosen the tightness and asked her to raise her arm again. She could raise her arm.
 
According to her, she has had a shoulder problem every year after a flu shot. Could the flu shot tighten the muscles around the neck, shoulder and upper back?

​Overview
 
The patient is a man with the age of 50s.

His right shoulder started hurting a month ago and the pain got worse the past few days. He visited my clinic because he had had an acupuncture treatment with me a few years ago for shoulder pain and his shoulder had gotten better after one treatment.
 
When he came in, he could barely move his right shoulder due to pain and felt severe pain around his right shoulder even with even a light touch. His right shoulder was also hurting at night. He had had a massage including around his right shoulder a few days before visiting me and it seemed like the massage caused more inflammation in his right shoulder, resulting in severe pain with a little bit of movement or a light touch and pain at night without movement in addition to usual shoulder pain.
 
In the course of acupuncture treatments, I focused on removing severe inflammation caused by the massage for the first 3 treatments. By these treatments, pain at night disappeared and I could press around his right shoulder. Then I gave him regular shoulder pain treatment twice and he could use his right shoulder with strength though the range of motion was not complete yet.
 
After the last treatment, he had to go on a trip, so I told him to come back when he would come back from the trip. He didn't come back for more treatment for his shoulder, but his shoulder got better and referred his client with shoulder pain to me.
 
Treatment
 
I mainly tried to remove severe inflammation around his shoulder using Dispersion needle for the first 3 treatments. After the inflammation decreased and around should was able to be pressed, I tried to remove pressure pain and tightness around his shoulder and between his shoulder blades using round-tip needles on distal acupuncture points. I attached a press-ball on Left ST-36 (2 inches below Left knee) at the end of the treatments, and that seemed like helping the rage of motion improved.

​Cozy Acupuncture in Salem, MA specializes in Pain Management.
If you are suffering from shoulder pain, we're here for you!
​Call Today to make an appointment: 617-584-8703 or Book now Online.