Left shoulder pain after eating or drinking

Hello @antman and welcome to Mayo Clinic Connect. I understand you are having concern over your radiating pain following eating. I see that @astaingegerdm has responded with some information based on her experience.

Did your care team in the ER mention doing follow up with your primary care doctor or a Gastroenterologist for next steps? If not, have you considered calling to set up a follow up appointment to continue to investigate the root cause now that you've ruled out heart problems?

Yes I went to my family doctor and they ran lots of test. I haven’t been to a gastroenterologist yet ,but I need to,Because it comes and goes quite often . It feels like it sets of a nerve. It doesn’t matter what I eat. The large the meal the meal pain I feel

Thanks you guys are so helpful

I have left shoulder pain half way between the top left shoulder and my neck. It is only when I over eat and so I figure there must be some nerve that gets punched that runs from your stomach. I have been eating less volume of food per meal for weeks and now yesterday I got this pain half way through the Christmas Eve meal. I hadn’t eaten that much volume for quite some time so it was like my stomach was over stretching and for some crazy reason the pain happens in the mid top left shoulder. It’s the only way I get this pain ever. It goes away with massage and pressing the painful area and lifting my left arm repeatedly for a minute or so. Hope that helps.

Welcome, @ellajo. Have you ever brought this issue to your doctor? Are you able to reach the painful area yourself to massage the pain away?

Hello
I get exactly the same pain after eating .
I have been told it is due to my Heitis Hernier but I have not been offered any treatment .
The only time I can eat with no pain is in the morning and the worst time when I get the pain is after evening meal .
This leads me to think my food isnt digesting fast enough and building up in my stoumach and pressing on a nerve

Update: Resolved! Thanks to COVID, my planned GI work-up was postponed. In the meantime, I consulted with a few physical therapists that were offering online consults (2 different practices). Both suggested exercises for dorsal scapular nerve damage/impingement. What always puzzled me was that I would get pain exactly like the post-meal pain while doing certain activities, one being chopping vegetables (I made everything from scratch). Also, depending on where I was using my laptop and therefore, the touch pad, I would end up getting the same pain. Chopping vegetables, scrubbing pots, computer work, painting at an easel, overhead work, weeding. I could be doing any of those, sit down to have a cup of tea and then feel the pain. It was not GI but musculoskeletal. Once I stopped the repetitive motion, sat at the table with my arm at a different angle and my back slightly forward, the pain would start. If I didn't lie down, it would wrap around my ribs. It seemed eating was the trigger but it was stopping a repetitive motion that was irritating an already irritated nerve.

It was relative easy to fix it, too. I raise each arm straight up and just lift my rib cage slightly on the same side, and do another maneuver with both arms straight out at shoulder height and alternate moving one arm to the side so both arms form a 90 degree angle. I have progressed to using a band to provide some resistance. If I'm sitting at a computer, I follow the mid back mobilization exercises demonstrated on one of the websites (all the PTs are Doctors of Physical Therapy and all have personally answered questions). When chopping vegetables, I keep my cutting arm closer to my side rather than having my elbow sticking out. I have not had a problem with this pain now in several months and canceled all GI tests.

There's a stomach emptying test where they give you a standard meal on an empty stomach..it has a tracer in it..then you get an x-ray every hour...I had the test at Mayo MN..they established that I had post operative Gastropaneisis because of how nerves that empty the stomach were damaged in a Nissen surgery.... It was done 6 years ago..it's not fixable..

@ken82 I’m sorry for what damage the surgery caused. I now read so many posts with problems after Nissen. It is not a new procedure, I would think there would be a safe routine by now.
Many moons ago when I still worked in Pediatrics, there were quite a few children with reflux that had a Nissen. I seriously don’t know how they did over the years. However, I saw less and less patients that went through it. More kids were on meds for reflux.
I had that gastric emptying test too- I was thought to have gastroparesis. I didn’t, but had slow passage through the rest of the intestines.

Hi Teresa, i know this was a while ago but you sound like you may know what is wrong with me. I have been seeing a consultant for 3 years now and no further forward. If you are still offering help, I would love to speak with you