Upper Back Pain in Olympia WA

Have you ever been just lounging around the house or maybe doing your favorite activity and suddenly you get a pain between your shoulder blades? It seems like every time you reach your arm out the pain gets worse. Maybe it's difficult to take a deep breath without feeling pain? There are a lot of things that could be causing this.

Your upper back has a lot of moving parts. The shoulder blades are gliding from midline to the sides of your body and back every time you move your arms. You have 12 sets of ribs that are moving up and down every time you breathe. You have dozens of muscles contracting and releasing every time you move and breathe. You have a dozen vertebrae in your upper back that are twisting and bending with every movement. It is really difficult to pinpoint the exact cause of your pain by yourself. That's why it's important to come see us at our chiropractic clinic in Olympia WA. We've got a lot of tools in our bag to help figure out what's happening and how to fix it. Let's talk about a few issues a little more in depth.

Muscle Tightness in Olympia WA

Most of us get really tight shoulders when we are feeling stressed. Often times we've been stressed for so long that that tension just becomes a normal part of our everyday life. It only takes a slight wrong move for those muscles to react and become sore. At Evergreen Family Chiropractic we offer massage therapy that has been proven to be very effective at relieving stress and loosening up tight muscles and reliving that soreness.

Muscle Strain

This is very similar to muscle tension but it's important to address separately because it's usually caused by overworking a muscle in a short period of time. Often times your upper back muscles get strained when you've done more exercise or physical activity than you are used to doing. Maybe you went out and played a sport or it's the beginning of the gardening season and you spent more time in the yard than you anticipated. This leads to the muscle fibers breaking down and becoming sore which is important in order for them to build back stronger, but it still hurts. This can take a few days to recover from but at Evergreen Family Chiropractic we can help relieve your symptoms while you're muscles are healing.

"Rib Out"

Your ribs connect to your spine in a couple of places and are held together by tight ligaments. Your ribs also wrap around the front of your body and attach to your sternum. If you have a small fall or sometimes just too much activity, you can cause the end of the rib to roll a tiny amount and be "out of place." This causes local pain in the joint but also radiating pain So when you feel a pain from your rib, it's very common to feel it near the spine and in the front near your sternum as well. It may also become difficult to take a deep breath because your ribs have to be able to move up and down and function properly in order to breathe correctly. At Evergreen Family Chiropractic we see a lot of rib issues. Some of them resolve on their own in time. Some of them require a little help to get back into proper functioning order. In either case, we are here to help you.