Has anyone ever suffered shoulder injury/pain from playing the violin? My left shoulder has been clicking for ages (i.e. at least a year) but it's only started aching slightly in the last few days, and I have been doing quite a bit of practice so it's only just occurred to me that it might be the violin that's causing it. It still doesn't hurt enough to bother me, I can just feel that there's something not quite right.

Does anyone have any experience of this?
Thanks.

This is only a wild stab in the dark as obviously I've not assessed you, but clicking shoulders are normally due to instability, usually of the rotator cuff muscles. (A group of 4 muscles that stabilise the shoulder). If you have instability, your shoulder doesn't move in quite the right plane during normal movements and actions of a repetitive nature then cause irritation to the surrounding structures, causing inflammation and further rotator cuff muscle inhibition, thus worsening the whole situation. Rest, anti-infammatories and physio may help sort things out, but as I said above, this is only a guess, as I've not even seen your shoulder!

I'm not a string player Rosie, but I have a problematic Left Shoulder.

If its causing pain stop. Contact your GP and see if they have any pearls of wisdom. The chances are they will not.

This is where the world of complementary medicine comes in.

It might be worthwhile you seeing an osteopath or having Alexander Technique lessons.

None of this is Cheap. However if your GP cannot do anything via NHS physiotherapy, this may be your only option. I hope your GP is in favour of complementary medicine, and if you are covered by any Private Health Care Scheme you may be able to claim some of the cost back through this.

JoD

Thanks both of you will try the GP but also there's a physio 2 doors down who has a housemate who's a cellist, so they might be able to help!

Sounds like a plan.