Shoulder pain treatment in New Orleans.

Usually not, and it’s rarely the first step. A scan shows structure, not what is loading it, and wear and small tears turn up on shoulders that have never hurt. We start with a hands-on, cause-first evaluation: range in every plane, strength, how your shoulder blade moves, and your neck. If imaging would genuinely change your plan, we’ll help you get it, and we can look at the tendon with musculoskeletal ultrasound here in the clinic. Some things do get looked at promptly, though: a fall onto the shoulder, bruising down the arm, or hard pain while you are resting.

Yes, and movement usually helps more than rest. Hurt doesn’t always mean harm, and a shoulder kept still stiffens fast, which is a harder problem than the one you started with. What matters is dosing the right movement and the right load, and leaving alone the range that flares it. That is what a licensed physical therapist works out at your evaluation, then progresses as you improve.

We won’t hand you a number before we have looked at your shoulder, because a number picked in advance is a guess. What you get instead is a plan with an endpoint. Your plan runs through our four phases, Pain, Prime, Perform and Prevent, and each phase has a job and a way to know you have finished it. Your therapist talks through the likely shape of yours at the evaluation, and you will always know which phase you are in and what is left.