Dr. Robert R. Kutzner, M.D.

Go to your primary care doctor. Seek an X-ray to make sure nothing is broken and see if you have arthritis. If all is clear you probably have a rotator cuff tear. Before you go much further get on an NSAID with a non-addictive muscle relaxant, rest your arm, apply heat packs and stretch because your pain is probably related to muscle spasm. A couple of weeks of mysofascial release massage should help. If your pain and myospasm doesn't improve then get an MRI looking for tears and cervical spine problems. If you do get a response keep on with the stretching and therapy even though your pain has improved. Remember that getting your pain under control doesn't mean you are healed, that takes weeks, if not months, so take it easy and you will get better. Good luck.

2 or more dried prunes a day are great to help with regularity and prunes have a lot of magnesium which helps with muscle spasm pain.

I agree that being chained to an opiate with physical dependence isn’t optimal. The real question is can you find alternative tools to use to control your pain, meaning that can you prevent suffering from pain, without opiates? If not, then you’re better off on long-term maintenance with Buprenorphine than any other opiate lest you run the risk of becoming another prescription OD statistic. It is not an all or nothing issue either because you can use opiates medically to prevent suffering and not become physically dependent as long as you find ways to treat your pain well enough to prevent suffering at least 1 or 2 days out of 7, so you don’t have to take opiates. Pretty hard to become physically dependent on any scheduled medication when you frequently and randomly don’t take it. Hope this helps.

R. R. Kutzner MD