Right Shoulder Pain - What does it feel like?

[JBNYC]

Hello All:

My wife was diagnosed with PE 9 days ago (34wk + 3). Her protein (24hr catch) was 600 and the BP hovers around 135's/85's. She was in Hospital for the first two days and then bed rest for the past 7 days. She has been very god about either laying on the sofa or in bed on her left side. I should mention we are in a sublet while our apartment is renovated so we are on unfamiliar sofa and bed. Her blood work (tested 3 times now - last test Friday) has been normal. She has no swelling, no URQP. She does have a minor headache (1 out of 10) for a few hours each afternoon.

Yesterday, she started to complain about a "stiff neck" and tightness in the muscle that runs along the top of her right shoulder. Massage seems to help a great deal and she has no problems sleeping through the night (meaning its not painful enough to keep her awake at night). She describes it as a kink in her neck from constantly laying on her side.

Can those of you who have had the Right Shoulder Pain that was a result of your PE explain how the pain felt, etc?

I'm certainly going to report it to our OB at our next appointment but that is 48hrs away and I want to be proactive if I think this is related. I have read the symptom descriptions and I've mostly found people describing it as someone pinching you along the bra strap line. (Is that the strap around the back or the strap over the shoulder? - sorry, a nervous husband).

Thanks from NYC

[amberstrika]

Hello again, hope that BP is behaving itself! The shoulder pain.. ick. Been there before. The upper right quadrant pain is normally the typical pain associated with the loveliness that comes with PreE and HELLP. It feels like a sharp, often burning pain that doubles you over. No amount of position changing will make it go away. As for the right shoulder pain, imagine someone making one of those Kung-Fu monkey paw poses (link for you if you're not as much of a dork as me: http://www.shaolin.org/video-clips-5/sa ... lin10.html) and digging it as deeply down into you clavicle/shoulder region as painfully as they can. It's atrocious! It hurts so badly that catching your breathe seems almost too painful to bear. And it doesn't lessen up. Massage won't help it, that I promise you. It's like when people ask "how will I know when I'm in labor? Real labor?" All I can say is, "oh you'll know. Believe me... you'll know." The shoulder pain was kind of like that. You just know something is very, very wrong. Sounds to me like your wife is experiencing some ligament pain due to the hormone relaxin that is relaxing joint s and ligaments in preparation for the big event. It's incredibly easy to have sudden, random sprained muscle type pains. I would wake up trying my darnedest to figure out how in the world I managed to strain my back, leg, shoulders, ect. Only to just realize that I probably spent a few too many minutes hunched over in a position that caused strain. I swear, pregnancy is not as glamorous as people think! It's hair-pullingly nerve wracking! Best of luck to you. Hope this helped.


I'm assuming that this is your and your wife's first baby. Congrats!

[tree]

Everyone experiences the URQ/shoulder pain from HELLP a little differently, but I don't think I have heard of it being only in the neck/top of shoulder. That sounds more likely to be related to a new bed and couch. However, it would probably be a good idea to discuss with the doctor at your next appointment just in case.

For me, the pain from HELLP felt more like a baseball trying to push its way through the base of my shoulder blade along with a set or crowbars prying my ribs apart in the front. It is usually concentrated right where the bra band around your midsection would be. There are women who have no or minimal pain, constant pain, intermittent pain etc. It is different for everyone. Some upper right quadrant and back pain is also quite normal in pregnancy. I think it becomes worrisome when it is combined with other HELLP/pre-E symptoms like nausea, vomiting, flu-like symptoms, terrible headaches that don't go away, visual changes, etc. Call immediately if these kinds of symptoms begin or if her symptoms get worse.
I hope she starts feeling better soon. Bed rest is tough.

[angieb]

My experience goes against a lot of what amber said.

My pain was more in the shoulder blade area so not too far from the neck, (for me, bra strap areawhere it goes over the shoulder), and mine definitely did come and go for a few weeks even, a heating pad in the area helped a bit, sometimes. I slept through it, or did my best to, a few times. (I did see my doctor for it once- she didn't do bloodwork since I had none of the typical signs of pre-eclampsia. It wasn't until it hurt so bad it was hard to breathe that I went to the hospital, was admitted, and by the end of the day diagnosed with HELLP.)

Given her other issues, I'd give the doctor a call, they might not have her go in but may order bloodwork to see what her liver enzyme levels look like, specifically. Probably it's just pregnancy, but when it's your first, it's almost impossible to know what is normal or not. I dealt with that pain (which for me moved all over- sometimes my rib cage, sometimes my back, sometimes my shoulder blade) for a couple weeks prior to being diagnosed (my bp and everything else was normal except her growth) , I thought it was normal. My pregnancy with our son was normal and I never experienced anything close to the pain from hellp.