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Acute pain and swelling bilateral shoulders that disappeared in 3 days
Hello everyone, about a week ago (last weekend in Oct), a friend of mine experienced something unusual and I wanted to find out if anyone on the forum can give guidance about this.
He had no injuries and wasn't lifting anything before the incident. He is 69 and generally in good health, only takes hypertension medication. Normal weight.
He started having acute pain in his left shoulder on a Saturday night. Then began to have acute pain in right shoulder after that. On Sunday and Monday he was in horrible pain. The shoulders were swollen and felt hard, skin taut. He wasn't able to move the arm easily (I'm going to check on whether this was bilateral or not). When he was lying in bed, he had to maneuver himself a certain way as the arm(s) were too weak to help him move.
He isn't the type to go to a doctor so he toughed it out, stayed in bed and suffered. On Tuesday he felt slightly better and by Wednesday it was gone.
He had shoulder bursitis in the past and said it felt the same as that.
He didn't have any injections in the weeks leading up to this.
He did have Covid in late September after a physically demanding stint at a convention. He had a cough and a low grade fever but otherwise no other symptoms.
He was lifting heavy boxes at the convention but this was in mid to late September and he didn't have any ill effects from that just after the convention.
Since the acute pain started on the left side, I wondered if it was related to the heart but he had no other symptoms other than shoulder pain and swelling except he dry-heaved due to the pain level. He had no shortness of breath, no chest pain, no sweating. It seems unusual to me that a heart attack could present with shoulder swelling.
Could this be an initial presentation of rheumatoid arthritis? It was a noticeable flare of about 3 days then totally disappeared. What about gout?
Could he have bursitis simply due to a virus, perhaps this was a post-Covid issue?
Thank you for your insights.
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Shoulder pain that moves from shoulder to shoulder could be a sign of cardiac issues especially when accompanied by nausea. Without scaring him you might help him get to a cardiologist. At 69 it would be sensible to have a thorough exam even without symptoms.
I'd say it's safer not to guess.
Thank you, I thought the same also. I'm going to get the story again from him this week and see if I can suggest a follow up with his doctor. I don't think he will go to a cardiologist without seeing his PCP first. Usually cardiologists want a patient to be seen by the PCP first as the PCP knows the patient best, and the PCP then makes the initial diagnosis and gets some initial tests done. If there's anything abnormal, he will then recommend the patient sees a specialist.
@followheart87, does your friend have a general practitioner who knows him.
I've not ever needed a referral to see a cardiologist. It's helpful to go in with recent bloodwork, but I'm thinking that delay might not be advantageous. His GP or PCP might order the serum labs by phone.
Yes he does have a PCP. Personally, I wouldn't go straight to a cardiologist as it might not be cardiac but autoimmune or virus-triggered.
I already recommended seeing his PCP but he's reluctant since it went away and he feels perfectly fine. It's his decision.
followheart87, definitely his decision.
So, just as an aside it wouldn't be unreasonable to have a cardiac workup because of age alone. Even without the interesting event.
Bless your caring.