- Support your injured arm during your normal daily activities.
Your arm should be propped up when driving your car, while on your computer typing, or while sitting on a chair or couch at home. The arm is pulled down by gravity when it's not supported and this causes excess stress on the muscle of the rotator cuff. A nice pillow or cushion works best. If you can keep your arm supported most of the day, and prevent the natural effects of gravity, your pain and swelling in your shoulder should be reduced. It may be hard at first to keep it supported, but this will create a significant positive difference
- Put ice on the top of your shoulder every day.
A bag of peas or carrots that has been frozen works very well to ice the shoulder. The bags easily conform to the shoulder's shape. As stated before, be sure the arm is supported while icing down. Leave the frozen bag on for fifteen to twenty minutes at a time. If your shoulder is still in pain, it's possible to ice it down more than once a day. People often ice their shoulder before going to bed since it makes it easier to sleep. It's not uncommon to want to use a heating pad for your sore shoulder. It may feel good, but heat doesn't do anything to reduce the swelling, unlike ice.
- Support your hurt arm with a pillow at night while you sleep.
Putting your sore arm up on a pillow while you sleep will help reduce stress and pulling on the rotator cuff muscle. This will help to position the rotator cuff muscle in a good spot and will make it easier to sleep. If possible, sleep on the side of your good shoulder. If you sleep on your bad side, it will put pressure on the bursa causing pain and making it difficult to sleep. Also, don't sleep on your stomach or with your arms positioned over your head. This will cause unwanted stress and pain in the shoulder.
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