Part of Shoulder impingement
Can shoulder impingement cause numbness, tingling or pain down the arm?
Warning signs, and when to get help
Can shoulder impingement cause numbness?
Not as a usual part of it. The published symptom descriptions for this diagnosis are about pain, not about feeling. OrthoInfo, the patient information service of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, lists pain and tenderness at the front or side of the shoulder, pain radiating from the front of the shoulder to the side of the arm, pain and stiffness on lifting and reaching overhead, and night pain that can be bad enough to disturb sleep. Numbness is not on that list. The NHS puts impingement with pain that is often worse while you use the arm, and puts a tingling, numb or weak arm with shoulder instability instead.
A word about the name, because it changes what you will be reading. The Dutch Orthopaedic Association guideline dropped impingement in favor of subacromial pain syndrome, and defines that as non-traumatic, usually one-sided shoulder pain felt around the bony point at the top of the shoulder (Diercks 2014). You may also see rotator cuff tendinopathy, or rotator cuff related shoulder pain, on a letter. The shoulder impingement page explains why the word changed and our rotator cuff tendinopathy page carries the tendon program. What matters here is that every one of those names describes pain around the shoulder, not altered feeling in the hand.
People with painful shoulders do report numb and tingling hands, though, and that has been looked at. It is a small and awkward literature, set out further down this page, and it does not show the shoulder causing the hand symptoms. If you have searched this question already you will have met pages that say numbness is part of impingement and pages that say it points elsewhere. They disagree because the evidence underneath them is thin. So this page sticks to what the sources describe, and then says which arm symptoms need to be seen, and how fast.
Here is the honest reading. Numbness, pins and needles and loss of feeling are not what a subacromial shoulder typically produces, which makes them a reason to have the arm examined, not a reason to assume the shoulder covers everything you are feeling. That is not the same as telling you something is badly wrong. It is saying that nobody, including us, can sort this out from a description, and that the list at the foot of this page exists because some of the possible causes do not wait.
How far down the arm can shoulder pain be felt?
Into the outer arm, going by the descriptions we can check. OrthoInfo's early symptom list includes pain radiating from the front of the shoulder to the side of the arm, and Diercks and colleagues (2014) place the pain around the acromion, the bony point you can feel at the top of the shoulder. Neither description puts it in the hand or the fingers. That is as much as the sources support, and we are not going to draw you a line on the arm where shoulder pain is supposed to stop.
Where a symptom sits is only half of what a clinician listens for. The other half is what kind of symptom it is. A shoulder ache tracks what the arm is doing: it builds as you lift, it catches at one point in the range, it wakes you when you roll onto that side. Pins and needles, a patch of skin that feels dead, or fingers that have gone numb often do not follow the arm's movement at all, and they can sit within one nerve's territory in the hand rather than spreading over the whole of it.
So the useful question is not how far down pain can travel. It is whether what you are feeling below the shoulder is the same symptom at a distance, or a second symptom of a different kind. The further past the elbow it reaches, and the more it is numbness rather than ache, the less work the shoulder does in explaining it.
What else produces numbness and tingling down the arm
These are the candidates a clinician runs through, each with the page that covers it properly. One sentence here is not a diagnosis, and more than one of them can be true at once.
A nerve root in the neck comes first. Pressure or irritation where the nerve leaves the spine can send pain, numbness, tingling or weakness anywhere down the arm and into the hand, and cervical radiculopathy sets out how that behaves, including whether a pinched nerve can numb the hand. Symptoms that change with your head position, not with your arm, are the ones to notice. If the neck itself is the sore part and nothing travels down the arm, start with neck pain, and if the neck and the shoulder hurt together without nerve symptoms, our page on shoulder impingement and neck pain is the closer fit. The rest of our neck material sits under neck conditions.
Then the base of the neck and the space under the collarbone, where the nerves and the main blood vessels for the arm travel together. Pressure there tends to involve a wider spread of the arm than any single nerve at the wrist would, and symptoms that come on with the arm held up or while carrying are characteristic. Thoracic outlet syndrome covers it, with its own comparison against a pinched nerve and against the wrist, and that page is where to go if your whole arm is involved rather than part of your hand.
Next the two nerve entrapments further down, which have separate territories and separate habits. The median nerve at the wrist, in carpal tunnel syndrome, affects the thumb side of the hand and is typically worse at night. The ulnar nerve behind the elbow, in cubital tunnel syndrome, affects the little finger side. The map of which nerve supplies which fingers is set out on which nerve is which, and this same question read from the wrist upward is answered on can carpal tunnel cause arm and shoulder pain.
Symptoms in both hands, or in the hands and the feet, change the shape of the problem. A nerve condition affecting the nerves at the far ends of the limbs is one explanation, and peripheral neuropathy covers it. Pressure on the spinal cord in the neck is another, and it has its own lines on the warning list below, because numbness in both hands, hands that have slowly become clumsy, new trouble walking or new bladder or bowel trouble are not things to read about and leave.
The difference between a nerve root and the cord itself is the one distinction on this page worth holding on to, because the two run on different clocks. A squeezed root usually sends its symptoms down one arm. Pressure on the cord, which is what degenerative cervical myelopathy means, tends to show up as both hands, fingers that have got clumsy, a change in walking or balance, or new bladder trouble, though Davies and colleagues (2018) point out that it can be one-sided and that not every symptom is there. Those same authors say that in their clinical experience a diagnosis of carpal tunnel syndrome in both hands is often wrong and cord compression accounts for it, which is the main reason this page does not let you settle a numb hand by yourself. Surgery to take the pressure off can halt the decline, but the cord repairs itself poorly and what has been lost is often permanent, so delay costs function rather than time (Davies 2018). That is why the cord lines on the warning list carry the shortest timeframes on the page.
An injury is a separate case. A shoulder that has come out of joint sits close to the nerves of the arm, and shoulder dislocation is the page for that story. An operation is another separate case, and the commonest reason an arm is numb after shoulder surgery is the anesthetic rather than anything that has gone wrong. Many people having a subacromial decompression or a cuff repair are given a nerve block at the side of the neck, which leaves the whole arm numb and weak at first; Oxford University Hospitals puts the usual wear-off at 12 to 48 hours. Numbness, tingling or weakness still there after 48 hours, or starting once the block has worn off, is a reason to contact your surgical team or the ward you went home from the same day, and it has its own line on the list below. What the arm may and may not do in those weeks comes from your surgeon's protocol rather than from this page, and our rotator cuff repair rehab and shoulder replacement rehab pages are built around that.
Last, not everything that numbs or hurts an arm is coming from the neck, the shoulder or a nerve. The heart and the blood supply to the arm both appear on the warning list, with their own urgency, and that list is where we deal with them.
Is it your neck, your shoulder or your wrist?
Nothing here will tell you. What this page can do is help you describe it properly, and that changes an appointment, because most of the sorting out comes from what you say and not from any single test.
Worth getting clear before you go in: exactly where the symptom sits, and whether it covers the whole hand or part of it; whether it is pain, pins and needles, or a loss of feeling you can map by stroking the skin; and what brings it on, separating head and neck positions from arm positions, overhead work, carrying, and holding the wrist bent. Then say whether anything has got weak and at which task, buttons, a kettle or a key, whether it is one arm or both, and when it started in relation to the shoulder pain. The order those things appeared in is often the most informative detail you own, and it is the one most often lost by the time anyone asks.
Do not try to settle this with a test of your own. The named shoulder, neck and wrist maneuvers that fill the search results are clinician procedures, interpreted next to a history and a full examination, and tried alone on the sofa they point the wrong way as readily as the right one. The dangerous outcome is the reassuring one, because a result that feels normal is what talks you into waiting, and a few of the causes above do not wait.
What the research says about numb hands with a painful shoulder
Less than you would hope, and it is better to know that than to be reassured. One narrative review has asked this question directly (Zhang and Murrell, 2025). Its searches returned 33 papers and three met its criteria: a study of 100 patients with subacromial impingement syndrome having arthroscopic decompression, a study of patients with rotator cuff tears, and a study of patients having labral repair. Every one of those groups was heading for an operation, so they are not a cross-section of people with sore shoulders, and the hand symptoms were what patients reported about themselves rather than anything measured.
Three findings in it are worth carrying away. Patients in all three studies reported hand paresthesia and numbness before their surgery. The more intense the shoulder pain, the more often hand symptoms were reported, across all three. And in the one study that tested nerve conduction, no significant nerve entrapment was found, which the review itself says leaves the explanation unclear. The authors offer a change in how the nervous system processes pain as a possible account, and they put it as a hypothesis rather than a finding.
We give you no percentages from that review on purpose. The figures in it belong to the three original studies, each with a surgical population and a self-reported case definition, and we have not read those three papers ourselves. A number quoted accurately through two steps can still describe a different group of people from the one reading it, so you get the shape of the evidence here and not the decimal points. The shape is this: a numb or tingling hand alongside a painful shoulder is a recognized combination that nobody has yet explained, and it has never been shown to be caused by the shoulder.
Can you have a shoulder problem and a nerve problem at the same time?
Yes, and it is unremarkable. A rotator cuff that hurts to lift and an irritated nerve in the same limb are two separate findings, and once one of them has a name on it the second can go unnoticed for months. Even the research struggles to keep them apart: the Dutch guideline notes that in the studies it reviewed, the difference between subacromial complaints and general shoulder or neck pain was not always clear (Diercks 2014).
The practical consequence is simple enough. Work aimed at the shoulder will not help a nerve that is being squeezed in the neck, and the time it takes to discover that is time nobody gets back. So ask for the whole limb to be examined in one visit, neck included, which is a fair thing to request and is how the examination tends to be taught anyway. Make clear which of your symptoms troubles you most, because that is where a clinician will start.
One rule applies while you wait. If an exercise sends numbness or tingling further down your arm, the cervical radiculopathy program says to stop that movement and leave it out, and that is the rule to follow here too until somebody has examined your arm. The response rule for the shoulder exercises themselves lives on the shoulder impingement page, and your physio will adjust it to the arm in front of them.
What an assessment sorts out, and when a nerve test is used
Mostly questions, and then hands on the neck, the shoulder, the elbow and the hand in one sitting, since the job is to find out which structure is producing which symptom. Strength gets tested task by task rather than as a general impression, and feeling gets tested area by area, which is how a numb patch is matched to a nerve or to a nerve root.
A nerve conduction test can measure whether a nerve is being slowed, and it is sometimes arranged when the examination leaves the picture unclear or when the answer would change the plan. It is a test a clinician organizes, not something to request off a web page, and this page puts no figures on how accurate it is. Scans follow the same principle here: we do not tell you whether you need one. The MRI question for a pinched nerve in the neck is answered on the cervical radiculopathy page, and the shoulder imaging question belongs to the shoulder impingement page and its sister pages.
Treatment for a nerve problem starts once somebody knows which nerve is involved. A median nerve glide is one of the things that may be used once the nerve has been identified, and the technique and the dose live on that page and on the carpal tunnel syndrome page. It is meant to feel easy and to bring on no tingling, so tingling that builds with each glide, or that lingers more than a few seconds after you stop, means stop and leave it out until somebody has examined the arm. A nerve glide is not a substitute for being assessed, and it is not a test either. These conditions overlap, and it is an assessment, not a web page, that settles which one you have.
Arm symptoms that need urgent attention
Of everything above, this is the section that matters most. A page answering a shoulder question gets opened by plenty of people whose problem turns out to sit somewhere other than the shoulder, and a few of those causes are counted in minutes.
The full list sits at the foot of the page in groups, most urgent first: get emergency help now, then get help today, then book an appointment. Read the first group before anything else, even if none of it sounds like you, because that is where the lines measured in minutes are. The list is long because an arm is where several unconnected problems show themselves first, so look for the one line that matches what you can see and feel today rather than working through all of them.
If you have pins and needles in an arm together with neck or arm pain, or your arm feels heavy or weak, the NHS advises asking for an urgent GP appointment or calling NHS 111. Wherever you live, get it checked the same day if nobody has looked at it yet. The same timeframe applies to numbness or pins and needles in the arm that does not go away, to no feeling in part of the arm, and to weakness that is getting worse.
Some of what follows is an emergency rather than a same-day problem, and each one has its own line in the list below. Any sign of a stroke, even one that passes, means calling emergency services. Chest pain or tightness that may spread to your arm, neck or jaw, or shoulder and arm pain with shortness of breath, sweating or feeling sick, can be a heart attack. An arm, hand or fingers that turn cold, pale, blue or gray compared with the other side can mean the blood supply to the arm is blocked. And new problems walking, new bladder or bowel trouble, or hands that suddenly become clumsy can be pressure on the spinal cord in the neck.
Two more emergencies belong in that list because the arm is where they show themselves. An arm or hand that swells and turns blue, dusky or darker than usual, feels heavy, tight or warm, and has veins standing out over the shoulder or chest, can be a blood clot in the vein under the collarbone, which needs an emergency department the same day. And if you have had cancer, now or in the past, arm pain or numbness that comes with a tight band of pain around the body, weakness, trouble walking or new bladder or bowel trouble is the pattern of cancer pressing on the spinal cord, which is a call to your cancer team's emergency number straight away.
Infection belongs on that emergency list as well, and it is the one readers least expect in an arm. Neck pain with a fever, or feeling hot, shivery or very unwell, together with new weakness, numbness or tingling in an arm or a leg, new trouble walking or new bladder or bowel trouble, can be an infection pressing on the cord or the nerves in the neck, and that means an emergency department straight away. Neck or arm pain with a fever or chills and none of those neurological changes is a lower tier but still a same-day one.
Surgery has its own route. Numbness, tingling or weakness in the arm or hand still there more than 48 hours after a shoulder operation, or starting once the nerve block has worn off, means contacting your surgical team or the ward you went home from the same day.
Three slower-building problems also need advice the same day, and they get dismissed for exactly that reason. Hands that have gradually become clumsy with buttons, or numbness in both hands. Pain or tingling in both arms at once rather than in one. An electric shock feeling running down your back or into your limbs as your head bends forward.
Two histories change the timing on their own. New neck, shoulder or arm pain in anyone who has had cancer, now or in the past, or who is losing weight without trying, needs medical advice the same day. And shoulder or arm pain alongside a cough lasting more than 3 weeks, or breathlessness that is getting worse, is worth a doctor within a few days and worth mentioning as a pair, because a growth at the top of the lung sits next to the nerves that supply the arm. Coughing up blood moves that from a few days to the same day, and a bigger bleed, or one with breathlessness, a very fast heartbeat or chest or upper back pain, means calling emergency services. Both lines are set out in full below.
That last one is worth naming properly, because waiting for a cough is how the diagnosis gets missed. A tumour at the top of the lung grows into the bundle of nerves at the base of the neck (the brachial plexus), so arm and shoulder pain is the first complaint in almost all affected patients, with pain and pins and needles in the ring and little fingers when the lowest nerve roots in the neck (C8 and T1) are involved, then a weakening grip and hand muscles that look thin, and a drooping eyelid, a smaller pupil or one-sided facial flushing and sweating if it reaches the nerve chain beside the spine. Chest symptoms usually arrive later, which is why these cases are treated as an orthopedic problem first and the cancer diagnosis comes late (Petrella and colleagues, 2023). So that pattern with no cough at all still needs medical advice the same day, with the whole picture said in one go. If the eyelid or pupil change comes with new one-sided face, jaw or neck pain, or a new pulsing sound in one ear, read the artery line in the warning signs list instead: that one is an emergency department straight away.
An injury has its own route. If the pain started after a fall, a pull or another injury and the arm has been weak since, that is medical advice the same day, said out loud as an injury. A shoulder that has changed shape, locked, or become severely painful after a fall is an emergency department straight away, and you should not drive yourself.
Every line is set out in full below, with the timeframe that goes with it, and the timeframes differ. Nothing here says a tingling arm means something terrible. What it says is that this is not a symptom to live with quietly for two weeks while you work on your shoulder.
Related exercise programs
Warning signs
Get emergency help now
- Emergency: any sign of a stroke, even if it goes away. That means a face that droops on one side, an arm you cannot lift or keep up, slurred or muddled speech, weakness or numbness on one side of your body or face, sudden blurred vision, double vision or loss of sight, trouble swallowing, sudden dizziness with unsteadiness or falling over, a sudden severe headache, or a sudden fall where your legs give way but you do not black out (a drop attack). Call emergency services straight away. With neck pain, these can rarely come from a tear in an artery in the neck.
- Chest pain or tightness, which may spread to your arm, neck or jaw, or shoulder or arm pain that comes with shortness of breath, sweating or feeling sick. This can be a heart attack. Call emergency services straight away.
- Your arm, hand or fingers turn cold, pale, blue or gray compared with the other side. Call emergency services or go to an emergency department straight away, and do not drive yourself. The blood supply to the arm may be blocked.
- Your arm or hand swells, turns blue, dusky, red or darker than usual, or feels heavy, tight, warm or tender, or has a throbbing or cramping pain that feels different from normal muscle ache. The veins over your shoulder, chest or arm may stand out or be sore to touch, and it often starts after hard or repeated use of the arm. Go to an emergency department the same day, and do not wait to see if it settles. This can be a blood clot in the main vein under the collarbone (venous thoracic outlet syndrome) or elsewhere in the arm, which needs treatment quickly. If you are also short of breath or have chest pain, call emergency services.
- Emergency: new problems walking, for example your legs feel stiff, heavy or weak or you have become unsteady on your feet, new trouble controlling your bladder or bowels, or hands that suddenly become clumsy, for example you can no longer do up buttons. Call emergency services straight away. These can be signs of pressure on the spinal cord in the neck.
- Emergency: you have had cancer, now or in the past, and your back or neck pain feels like a tight band around your body, or comes with pain spreading down an arm or leg, weakness, numbness or pins and needles in your arms or legs, trouble walking, or trouble controlling your bladder or bowels. Call your cancer team's emergency number straight away, or go to an emergency department if you do not have one or cannot get through. This can be cancer pressing on the spinal cord (metastatic spinal cord compression), which needs treatment straight away.
- Emergency: a new headache, or new pain on one side of your face, jaw or neck, with a drooping eyelid or a smaller pupil on the same side, or with a new pulsing or whooshing sound in one ear that keeps time with your heartbeat. Call emergency services or go to an emergency department straight away, and do not drive yourself. This can be a tear in an artery in the neck (cervical artery dissection), which can lead to a stroke.
- Emergency: neck pain with a fever, or you feel hot, shivery or very unwell, and you also have new weakness, numbness or tingling in one or both arms or legs, new trouble walking, or new trouble with your bladder or bowels. Call emergency services or go to an emergency department straight away. This can be an infection pressing on the spinal cord or nerves in the neck (spinal epidural abscess), which needs emergency treatment.
- The shoulder feels as if it has slipped out of place, looks a different shape or suddenly locks so you cannot move the arm, or the pain is severe after a fall or an injury. Go to an emergency department straight away, without driving yourself, and do not try to put the shoulder back in yourself.
Get help today
- Pins and needles or numbness in the arm that does not go away, no feeling in part of the arm, or weakness that is getting worse. Get medical advice the same day. For pain spreading down the arm from your neck, ask for an urgent appointment with your doctor. If one side of your face or body suddenly goes numb or weak, or your speech becomes slurred or muddled, call emergency services, even if it goes away.
- Pins and needles in an arm together with neck or arm pain, or an arm that feels heavy or weak, and nobody has checked it yet. Get medical advice the same day.
- Hands that have slowly become clumsy, for example trouble doing up buttons or dropping things, or numbness in both hands. Get medical advice the same day. These can be signs of pressure on the spinal cord in the neck (cervical myelopathy). If the clumsiness or numbness gets worse quickly, call emergency services straight away.
- Pain or tingling in both arms at the same time, rather than in one. Get medical advice the same day. This can also be a sign of pressure on the spinal cord in the neck.
- An electric shock feeling runs down your back or into your arms or legs as your head bends forward. Stop and get medical advice the same day.
- An arm or hand that is getting weaker, or muscles in your hand that look thinner or flatter than on the other side. Get medical advice the same day.
- Neck or arm pain with a fever or chills, or you feel generally unwell. Get medical advice the same day, and go to an emergency department if you feel very unwell.
- Numbness, tingling, pins and needles or weakness in your arm or hand that is still there more than 48 hours after the operation, or that starts after the numbness from the nerve block has gone. The same applies to a droopy eyelid, a blocked nose, a hoarse voice, a numb cheek or slight breathlessness from the nerve block that lasts more than 48 hours. Contact your surgical team or the ward you went home from the same day. A nerve block usually wears off within 12 to 48 hours, and a nerve can rarely be injured during the operation. If one side of your face or body suddenly goes numb or weak, or your speech becomes slurred or muddled, call emergency services, even if it goes away. If your breathing gets harder rather than easier, you are short of breath at rest, or you also have chest pain, call emergency services straight away.
- Shoulder or arm pain with numbness, tingling or weakness that reaches your armpit, your inner arm or the ring and little finger side of your hand, a grip that is getting weaker, or hand muscles that look thinner, even if you have no cough and no breathlessness at all. Get medical advice the same day and say that the pain and the hand symptoms started together. A growth at the top of the lung can press on the nerves to the arm and do all of that before it causes anything in the chest, which is why it is mistaken for a shoulder problem first.
- The pain started after a fall, a pull or another injury, especially if the arm has been weak since, for example you cannot lift it out to the side or hold it up. This can be a broken bone or a torn tendon. Get medical advice the same day, and say how it happened and that the arm has been weak since, because UK shoulder surgeons advise urgent referral for a rotator cuff tear caused by an injury.
- Sudden, very bad shoulder pain, or you suddenly cannot lift or move your arm at all. Get medical help the same day.
- New neck, shoulder or arm pain and you have had cancer, now or in the past, or you have lost weight without trying. Get medical advice the same day and mention it. If you are being treated for cancer now, contact your cancer team the same day.
Book an appointment
- Shoulder or arm pain together with a cough that has lasted more than 3 weeks or breathlessness that is getting worse, especially if you smoke or used to smoke. See your doctor within a few days and mention it. Rarely, a growth at the top of the lung can press on the nerves to the arm. If you cough up a few spots or streaks of blood, get medical advice the same day. If it is more than that, or you also find it hard to breathe, have a very fast heartbeat or have pain in your chest or upper back, call emergency services.
Common questions
Can shoulder impingement cause numbness in the hand or the fingers?
Numbness in the hand is not part of how this condition is described. The symptom lists reach the side of the arm and stop there: OrthoInfo describes pain radiating from the front of the shoulder to the side of the arm, and the Dutch guideline defines the condition as pain around the bony point of the shoulder (Diercks 2014). A numb hand, or numbness that follows one nerve's patch of the fingers, is the pattern of a nerve being affected somewhere along its length, and the places that happens are the neck, the base of the neck, behind the elbow and the wrist. Our page on which nerve is which sets out those territories properly. Numbness in both hands is the one to take least for granted: it is the presentation that gets labelled carpal tunnel in both wrists when the cause is pressure on the spinal cord in the neck, and Davies and colleagues (2018) say that in their clinical experience cord compression usually accounts for it. None of that tells you which one you have, and numbness that does not go away, or no feeling in part of the arm, needs medical advice the same day.
Can a shoulder injury cause numbness in the arm?
An injury changes the question, and it changes the urgency. A shoulder that has come out of joint can affect the nerves that pass close to it, which is why our shoulder dislocation page is the one to read if that is your story, and why the NHS puts a tingling, numb or weak arm with shoulder instability rather than with impingement. Two things on this page's warning list apply straight away after an injury. If the shoulder has changed shape, has locked, or the pain is severe after a fall, that is an emergency department straight away, without driving yourself. If the arm has been weak since the injury, that is medical advice the same day, with how it happened said out loud, because UK shoulder surgeons advise urgent referral for a rotator cuff tear caused by an injury.
Why does my shoulder hurt and my hand tingle?
Because there are probably two things to sort out, or because there is one thing and it is not the shoulder. Both are ordinary findings in a clinic and neither can be settled from a page. The combination has been studied once, in a narrative review that found three studies, all in patients listed for shoulder surgery, in which hand paresthesia and numbness were reported by patients before their operation, more often when the shoulder pain was more intense (Zhang and Murrell, 2025). The one study in it that tested nerve conduction found no significant nerve entrapment, and the review says the explanation remains unclear. What that supports is having the whole limb assessed, the neck included, rather than deciding the shoulder accounts for the hand.
Is numbness in the arm serious?
It can be, and this is not a symptom to sit on. Some causes are ordinary and settle with treatment. Others are measured in hours: the NHS lists no feeling in your arm or shoulder, and pins and needles that do not go away, among the reasons to ask for an urgent GP appointment or call NHS 111, and numbness or weakness down one side of the body is a stroke sign that means calling emergency services even if it passes. Numbness in both hands, hands that have slowly become clumsy with buttons, new trouble walking or new bladder or bowel trouble point toward the spinal cord in the neck and have their own urgency in the warning signs section of this page. Read that list rather than this answer, because each line carries its own timeframe.
References
- NHS. Shoulder pain. Page last reviewed 22 May 2023. https://www.nhs.uk/symptoms/shoulder-pain/
- American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. Shoulder impingement/rotator cuff tendinitis. OrthoInfo. https://www.orthoinfo.org/en/diseases--conditions/shoulder-impingementrotator-cuff-tendinitis/
- Diercks R, Bron C, Dorrestijn O, et al. Guideline for diagnosis and treatment of subacromial pain syndrome: a multidisciplinary review by the Dutch Orthopaedic Association. Acta Orthopaedica. 2014;85(3):314-322. https://doi.org/10.3109/17453674.2014.920991
- Zhang C, Murrell GAC. Prevalence of hand paresthesia and numbness in painful shoulders: a narrative review. Annals of Joint. 2025;10:6. https://doi.org/10.21037/aoj-24-33
- NHS. Cervical spondylosis. Page last reviewed 2 August 2023. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/cervical-spondylosis/
- NHS. Symptoms of a stroke. Page last reviewed 12 September 2024. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/stroke/symptoms/
- NHS. Heart attack. Page last reviewed 31 March 2026. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/heart-attack/
- NHS. Symptoms of lung cancer. Page last reviewed 20 August 2026. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/lung-cancer/symptoms/
- NHS. DVT (deep vein thrombosis). Page last reviewed 30 April 2026. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/deep-vein-thrombosis-dvt/
- National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. Spinal metastases and metastatic spinal cord compression (NG234). Published September 2023. https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng234
- Davies BM, Mowforth OD, Smith EK, Kotter MR. Degenerative cervical myelopathy. BMJ. 2018;360:k186. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.k186
- Darouiche RO. Spinal epidural abscess. New England Journal of Medicine. 2006;355(19):2012-2020. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMra055111
- Doukhi D, Debette S, Mawet J. Headaches attributed to cranial and cervical artery dissections. The Journal of Headache and Pain. 2025;26(1):28. https://doi.org/10.1186/s10194-025-01958-9
- Petrella F, Casiraghi M, Bertolaccini L, Spaggiari L. Surgical approaches to Pancoast tumors. Journal of Personalized Medicine. 2023;13(7):1168. https://doi.org/10.3390/jpm13071168
- Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Rotator cuff repair: information for patients, surgery and rehabilitation. Leaflet OMI 107567, December 2024. https://www.ouh.nhs.uk/media/vpwp201w/107567repair.pdf
Written and checked by the PocketPhysio editorial team. Last updated 2026-10-18.
This page is general education, not a diagnosis or a personal treatment plan. See a physiotherapist or doctor for advice about your own situation.