dentalronna@gmail.com #1

[dentalronna@gmail.com]

I have left shoulder pain and down the left side of my upper back...why? I am eating to much? to fast? I am clueless......It's horrible!! Any answers???

[HeatherinCA]

It's gas from surgery, they pump your stomach full of air. Not sure why it causes shoulder pain but it does!

I get a little bit if I eat too much, but it's usually not that painful.

[newellby40]

 Dentalronna, on March 4, 2011 - 2:21 PM, said:

I have left shoulder pain and down the left side of my upper back...why? I am eating to much? to fast? I am clueless......It's horrible!! Any answers???

I got shoulder pain 2 wks after surgery... WORST pain in my life. I would rather have another baby than that again. Doc said It got stuck in the banding area and that causes the diaphragm to inflame and then the pain starts and goes to your shoulder. i had to have my fill taken out and start back on clear liq for 3 days then the post op diet all over again. it has been 2 weeks since and I am much better and MORE careful about what i eat.

http://www.TickerFactory.com/weight-loss/wFfMVxl/

[dentalronna@gmail.com]

Well mine is painful........who knows maybe cause it's been nine days..............

 HeatherinCA, on March 4, 2011 - 3:19 PM, said:

It's gas from surgery, they pump your stomach full of air. Not sure why it causes shoulder pain but it does!

I get a little bit if I eat too much, but it's usually not that painful.

[shanrich96]

I have an answer as to why it happens...Basically the gas has now where to escape and some makes its way up verses down. i have also heard that sonce internal organs do not have nerves (we don't hear ouch my liver hurts) your body will signal pain somewhere else. A good example of this is a Heart Attack...where is the pain ...normally in the arm and shoulder. So with things being manipulated inside your body they hurt too. I was told that it's your diaphram protesting being disturbed.

I had jokingly asked my doctor to make sure he "Burped" me before he sewed me up. He got a good chuckle.

[Humming Bird]

I feel for you. Some bandsters never have the left shoulder pain and some only have it for a week or 2.
Mine lasted a couple months. It was even my full signal for awhile. I can tell you that it does go away. Mine went away after I dropped some weight and the pressure was no longer on the phrenic nerve. One thing that did help me were equate brand (walmart) menthol pain patches. They are under $4 and well worth the trip to walmart. I would just put a patch on the tip of my shoulder in the evning and leave it on all night.


Here is some info I copied from another banster's post awhile ago:
Best explanation of left shoulder pain I've ever found.


If you woke up with a pain in your shoulder, you'd probably think something was wrong with your shoulder, right? Maybe you slept on it the wrong way, maybe you're a weekend warrior who threw the football a few too many times. In most cases, your hunch is probably right. Pain in the shoulder usually indicates an injury or disease that affects a structure in your shoulder, such as, say, your subacromial bursa or a rotator cuff tendon. Makes sense, doesn't it?

But you might be way off. Sometimes the brain gets confused, making you think that one part of the body hurts, when in fact another part of the body, far removed from the pain, is the real source of trouble. This curious (and clinically important) phenomenon is known as referred pain. For example, it's unlikely but possible that your shoulder pain is a sign of something insidious happening in your liver, gall bladder, stomach, spleen, lungs, or pericardial sac (the connective tissue bag containing the heart). Yup - conditions as diverse as liver abscesses, gallstones, gastric ulcers, splenic rupture, pneumonia, and pericarditis can all cause shoulder pain. What's up with that?

Neuroscientists still don't know precisely which anatomical connections are responsible for referred pain, but the prevailing explanation seems to work pretty well. In a nutshell, referred pain happens when nerve fibers from regions of high sensory input (such as the skin) and nerve fibers from regions of normally low sensory input (such as the internal organs) happen to converge on the same levels of the spinal cord. The best known example is pain experienced during a heart attack. Nerves from damaged heart tissue convey pain signals to spinal cord levels T1-T4 on the left side, which happen to be the same levels that receive sensation from the left side of the chest and part of the left arm. The brain isn't used to receiving such strong signals from the heart, so it interprets them as pain in the chest and left arm.

So what about that shoulder pain? All of organs listed above bump up against the diaphragm, the thin, dome-shaped muscle that moves up and down with every breath. The diaphragm is innervated by two phrenic nerves (left and right), which emerge from spinal cord levels C3, C4, and C5 (medical students remember these spinal cord levels using the mnemonic, "C3, 4, 5 keeps the diaphragm alive"). The phrenic nerves carry both motor and sensory impulses, so they make the diaphragm move and they convey sensation from the diaphragm to the central nervous system.

Most of the time there isn't any sensation to convey from the diaphragm, at least at the conscious level. But if a nearby organ gets sick, it may irritate the diaphragm, and the sensory fibers of one of the phrenic nerves are flooded with pain signals that travel to the spinal cord (at C3-C5). It turns out that C3 and C4 don't just keep the diaphragm alive; neurons at these two spinal cord levels also receive sensation from the shoulders (via the supraclavicular nerves). So when pain neurons at C3 and C4 sound the alarm, the brain assumes (quite reasonably) that the shoulder is to blame. Usually that's a good assumption, but sometimes it's wrong.

[A thinner happier me]

I have had shoulder pain for over a year and sometimes it never goes away. If you are lucky it will. The band presses on a nerve and sometimes when they put the band in it is not exactly placed off the nerve but because it is laproscopic they cant really see the nerve. I just deal with it because its not like over bearing or anything. Its just pain that never goes away.

[ElfiePoo]

I've had it (phrenic nerve pain) since the day of surgery (16 months ago)...getting worse instead of better. My band is coming out in 3 weeks as a result.

.

[dentalronna@gmail.com]

I really hope that doesnt happen to me...............

.
[/quote]

[ElfiePoo]

 Dentalronna, on March 5, 2011 - 10:37 AM, said:

I really hope that doesnt happen to me...............

.

I don't know what the actual statistics are, but there are a lot of people here who have it and find it a tolerable 'irritant' that comes and goes...something they can live with. Some don't have it at all. Think positively and hope for the best.

.

[Tancy]

I was banded September 2009, my shoulder pain has been off and on every since my surgery. I thought it was a shoulder injury. I have been sent to neurologists, heart doctors, had MRI's done. The PA that does my fills told me she had a pt with the same symptoms. They took fluid out, pain evetually went away. As soon as they put it back in, the pain came right back. I am going for revision on March 9th. Even without fluid it still hurts sometimes. Any feedback

[Kiskis]

I was banded on Feb 9. Some days the pain is so brutal I thought maybe I threw my shoulder out. I try and stretch & work out - this helps. I find I get more pain when I eat too fast ot too much.

[beebe]

I am a little over a week since I got banded and have had no fill, my shoulder pain still comes and goes as well.

[KimK813]

Thanks for all the helpful advice and words of wisdom. Tomorrow is my 6 month bandiversary and I have been dealing with left shoulder pain for about 4 of those months. It mostly happens during the day, but as I continue to loose weight, it is getting more frequent. I will be sure to address this to my doctor when I go in again on the 23rd.

Good luck, everyone!

[Humming Bird]

Like I said before, My shoulder pain lasted for months. It was my full signal for months as well. It did teach me to stop eating and not take even one more tiny bite after I felt even the smallest shoulder reaction. As I dropped weight (about 45-50 lbs) the pressure on the nerve eased up. I still have the shoulder pain sometimes, but at this point it is rare.
I can not imagine living with it longer than I did like some other bandsters do. It really makes me question why they have to place the band so high on the stomach. Even if they placed it 1/4" lower the weight would come off.

[Tancy]

Well guys, I am 1 day out of my revision surgery. My doctor found that the tubing from my port was rubbing against my diaphragm and that was causing my shoulder pain. My dr told me that when he was a generalist, when a person had a car wreck, and they were hit in the side, to determine if they had a spleen injury, because the spleen is directly associated with the diaphragm, they would ask if you had left shoulder pain. So, maybe you guys can get relief. I show hope I do. Good luck!

[fiona14]

I had by LapBand on 12/9/2010, and the left shoulder pain has been the biggest problem by far! For the first couple of weeks it was excruciating, and I'd be in tears every single day. It has definitely calmed down, but it still bothers me most days. Sometimes, like today, it hurts so badly that I can't use my left arm. My surgeon was shocked I had this reaction and said he's never had any patient have this kind of pain (though after reading your comments on here, I find that hard to believe). He sent me to a neurologist who diagnosed me with Thoracic Outlet Syndrome and prescribed physical therapy. I can't say that it's brought me any relief from the pain. Tonight I did some of the home exercises for it and the pain got way worse! If it turns out that it's actually the phrenic nerve impingement, I'm at a loss as to what to do about it. When it hurts so badly, I will do anything that might bring relief. I've tried the skin pain patches with no relief. Neither to ice packs or hot packs help. I try keeping my shoulderblades back & pecs stretched, and that doesn't help. I'd be delighted to hear any more suggestions. So thrilled to have found this community recently. I don't have to be alone in all this anymore! Thanks

[Birinak]

 Dentalronna, on March 4, 2011 - 2:21 PM, said:

I have left shoulder pain and down the left side of my upper back...why? I am eating to much? to fast? I am clueless......It's horrible!! Any answers???

Don't worry yourself too much over the stories of shoulder pain after 6+ months. Obviously, people who are afflicted in this way are going to respond in high numbers to sympathize or share their stories, more than those bandsters for whom it hasn't been much of a problem. I too had shoulder pain after surgery. Ugh, I really hated it. Massages didn't help; it just made my shoulder sore after days of massaging it at one spot. I really dislike taking pills (even tylenol for headaches), but I was definitely taking my post-op pain pills regularly for the shoulder pain. Anyway, after reading these horrible experiences that other bandsters were having, I thought that I too would have to live with the pain. I would almost always get the pain after eating a few bites. But, after about 3-4 weeks, it went away. Since then, I've again experienced a very slight shoulder pain only one or two times after eating over the past 5 months, but it lasted for only a few minutes. Left shoulder pain seems to be very common after this surgery, but pain persisting after several months not so much. Hopefully, even if you do get the pain after many months, it'll only be when you overeat.

To those who endure persistent shoulder pain a long time after surgery, I really do feel for you.

[eck]

It is really interesting seeing all of the comments about the left shoulder pain. I had this for about a week or so starting the day after my surgery, but I had been warned ahead of time to expect it IF the surgeon had to also repair my hiatal hernia. Now I knew going in that I had a hiatal hernia. It was diagnosed a couple of years earlier when I was having ulcer problems.

At any rate, post-op the nurse told me that sure enough the doctors had repaired my hiatal hernia and to expect some soreness. She also told me to follow the eating plan exactly, i.e. to go slow with liquids, not eat too much or to fast, etc. I followed her instructions almost to a T and sure enough, in a few days the pain disappeared.

I have since done some more research and the link between hiatal hernia and left shoulder pain was confirmed via a couple of sources. So, if you're having it you may want to speak with your doctor about whether a) you had a hiatal hernia and whether it was repaired when you were banded.

Cheers,

[Kelli0965]

I also am struggling w/ left shoulder pain....My doctor also repaired My Hiatal Hernia but didnt give me any special diet instructions (other than clear liquids for 2 weeks) What are the "special instructions" you were given if any...do you know how long this is supposed to last?

 eck, on March 14, 2011 - 7:01 PM, said:

It is really interesting seeing all of the comments about the left shoulder pain. I had this for about a week or so starting the day after my surgery, but I had been warned ahead of time to expect it IF the surgeon had to also repair my hiatal hernia. Now I knew going in that I had a hiatal hernia. It was diagnosed a couple of years earlier when I was having ulcer problems.

At any rate, post-op the nurse told me that sure enough the doctors had repaired my hiatal hernia and to expect some soreness. She also told me to follow the eating plan exactly, i.e. to go slow with liquids, not eat too much or to fast, etc. I followed her instructions almost to a T and sure enough, in a few days the pain disappeared.

I have since done some more research and the link between hiatal hernia and left shoulder pain was confirmed via a couple of sources. So, if you're having it you may want to speak with your doctor about whether a) you had a hiatal hernia and whether it was repaired when you were banded.

Cheers,