Shoulder muscles stuck. please help?

Question

Hello all, I have asked this before and will ask again, I have also seen my doctor about this but all they want to do is feed me muscle relaxers. My doctor says that my sholder muscles on both sides are 95% of the time tense, and they will not loosen up. I can feel them hard as a rock all day long. It hurts all day everyday and even when i wake up. I have tried massauge but it does nothing for me, except for the time that they are massauging me, but i cant have someone attached to me giving me a massauge all day and night. so what can i do?
i was wondering if acupuncture would work?
nothing i have tired helps except for the muscle relaxers but i dont want to be taking thoes all the time. For them to make me feel better I would have to take one in the AM one in the afternoon and one at night. im only 21 and i dont want to have this forever,.... i am almost to the point to where i wanna go into the doctors and say cut the muscles out.
anyone have suggestions?!!

I appreciate the PT approach however, I cannot afford the time or money to do that, I work 40 hrs a week and my weekends are full of going to the beach to relax.

as far as life changes ect, nothing like that changes the pain or tightness of the muscles. I have had this for about 3 years now, i have gotten to the point where i can mostly block it out but then when i have an ultra painfull day its so bad i can berly move.

Answer 1

The suggestion for physical therapy sounds good. If that doesn't help, try regular exercise, as well as learning some relaxation techniques, such as yoga or tai chi. You might look into hypnosis as well.

Is there anything in your life that is causing you a lot of stress? Something at work, your home life, finance, etc? Does this muscle tension correspond with a change in your life, like a marriage, death of someone close to you, some illness for you or a friend, etc? Is there a topic that make you tense up or cringe whenever it's mentioned? All of these could be red flags that you should investigate and learn to deal with. As a last resort, consider talking to a counselor or therapist. Whatever triggers this might seem to you to be something completely unrelated, but still be the root cause of this response in you.

I am not a health professional, but I can't help but feel that the doctor's muscle relaxant prescription is a bandaid approach, and it's not attacking the root cause of the problem. If you can figure out what that is, and deal with it, you should be able to solve this problem.

Answer 2

try physical therapy...that can help in many ways. You can learn stretches that you can do throughout the day, the therapist can identify factors that are causing your muscles to tense up (like poor posture) and help you correct those factors, and can do other manual treatments to help relieve your muscles tension.