Refrain From Wine...Joint Pain Gone?

I exercise regularly…cardio and resistance. I’m 58 years old.
Over the last 2 months, I’ve experienced ongoing shoulder joint pain whenever I’ve made pouring-like motions with it, which I’d chalked up as an injury, even though there I’ve never been aware of such an injury.
During that time, I’ve almost consistently had wine EACH night.
Over the last 3 nights, for no real reason, I’ve refrained from alcohol.
My shoulder pain, now, for the first time in 2 months, is ABSOLUTELY gone.
Coincidence or wine-related?

Falling down less?

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Cork screw shoulder may be a thing?

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Physical therapy

In case you want a serious answer - makes some sense. Alcohol is inflammatory. What you eat and drink can absolutely impacts joint pain. Some people are particularly sensitive - when I go ketogenic a couple times a year, which cuts way back on inflammatory foods and the resultant insulin spike, my back pain improves noticeably.

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Does your shoulder hurt now when you use the pouring motion?
The proper experiment would now involve drinking and pouring multiple nights in a row to see if the pain came back.

And- if the pain persists the obvious solution isn’t to stop drinking wine but to stop pouring your own.

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From the injury sagas of two wine-loving friends, I know that (a) pouring can aggravate tennis elbow, and also that (b) it’s not uncommon for middle-aged men to have small undiagnosed tears in their rotator cuffs. So perhaps you have some shoulder injury that’s aggravated by the motion and/or by the alcohol.

Not wine related, but I have had to curtail some of my bread baking, as the hand mixing of the dough has badly aggravated my left shoulder. Didn’t figure it out until a couple of weeks ago. I don’t think it was the gluten. :wink:

Sounds like rotator cuff but if your pouring some of those heavy Napa Cab bottles perhaps that is not helping either. Either way glad your pain is better.

Having more than a glass of wine in the evening can start to negatively affect your sleep quality. It’s possible that after imbibing you are sleeping poorly or sleeping in a position that is bad for your shoulder. If you do that continuously for 2 months without any breaks, I could see it causing you persistent pain.

I was also thinking it might be sleep related. Might you be sleeping on your side more when you’ve had some wine? Even if not, it’s probably disrupting your sleep just a bit and causing you to move around more into different positions in the night. I’m sure there could be other causes, and maybe this has nothing to do with it, but it does seem plausible.

12 ounce curls?

Around that age, maybe a few years earlier, I went through what I was told was “frozen shoulder”, eventually on both sides. Each time healed up on its own, after a few months. No idea if this is your cause (I more suspect injury from repeated weight lifting, but that is a completely non-professional opinion).

Sounds like wine is inflaming your system in some way. I’ve had to cut out anything more than 2 cups of coffee recently as I cannot fall asleep on those nights (I’m 45) small changes can make a big difference.

My SO has had almost nothing to drink this year (like a tiny sip every other month) and has had a dramatic reduction in her body pain. I can believe OP’s situation.

Still there might be some physical damage that could be corrected, either via rehab work, or even outpatient surgery. I used a BevMo 2-for-1 coupon a couple years ago to get both my knees scoped out and ski debris cleaned out. (Only the anesthesiologist accepted it though)

Try pouring with your left hand

I could be way off as this was something I just heard a dr on the radio express, and someone with more medical knowledge than I can probably confirm (or deny) this little factoid: wine does not cause gout nor inflammation in joints because it is fermented. And particularly red wine because resveratrol is actually anti-inflammatory. It is all other liquors that cause and contribute to the problem.

Anyone with first hand experience on this?

Alcohol is also a diuretic, if you are not getting a considerable amount of water dehydration can exacerbate joint pain.

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Beer causes gout, and beer is fermented.

This.

But, seriously, the wine could be aggravating/bringing to the surface some mild rotator cuff tendinitis/tendinosis. A series of simple N of one trials/simple science experiments should allow you to figure it out.