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Aching and stiffness in the shoulders and hips
Category: Muscles, Bones & Joints · All muscles & joints symptoms
What it can feel like
Aching and stiffness centred on the shoulders and hips in someone over 50 — worst in the morning, making it hard to dress, comb hair or climb stairs, and easing as the day goes on — is the classic pattern of polymyalgia rheumatica, an inflammatory condition of older adults.
Possible causes
A symptom can have many causes, and most are not serious. The lists below group conditions this symptom can be associated with — common causes first. They are possibilities to discuss with a clinician, not a diagnosis.
Common causes
Shoulder and hip girdle aching can also be associated with osteoarthritis of the shoulders and hips, an underactive thyroid, vitamin D deficiency, and the shoulder stiffness that follows injury or immobility.
Other possible causes
The key association is polymyalgia rheumatica itself, which matters for two reasons: it responds dramatically to steroid treatment, and it overlaps with temporal arteritis — inflammation of arteries that can threaten vision — so new cases are always screened for headache, scalp tenderness and visual symptoms.
Red flags — when to seek help promptly
- New headache, scalp tenderness or pain in the jaw when chewing — urgent (possible temporal arteritis)
- Any visual disturbance — blurring, double vision or loss of vision in one eye — emergency
- Shoulder and hip stiffness with fever, weight loss or drenching sweats
- Weakness (true loss of strength) rather than stiffness, especially with difficulty swallowing
What a clinician may do
A clinician will test shoulder and hip movement and strength, take inflammation blood tests (ESR/CRP are usually strikingly raised in polymyalgia), and screen carefully for temporal arteritis. Ultrasound of the shoulders can support the diagnosis; blood tests also exclude thyroid and other mimics.
Watch: related videos
Examination and clinical videos from the MedicalVideos.com library relevant to this symptom. Some clinical footage is graphic — that is the nature of a medical video library.
Related guides on MedicalVideos.com
Frequently asked questions
How is polymyalgia different from arthritis of the joints?
Polymyalgia aches centre on the girdle muscles and their attachments rather than the joint spaces, and stiffness dominates over swelling. The near-complete relief within days of starting steroids is so characteristic that it is almost part of the diagnostic test — though the mimics are excluded first.
Why the questions about my scalp and vision?
Temporal arteritis — inflammation of the arteries supplying the head — accompanies polymyalgia in a significant minority and can cause sudden, permanent blindness. Scalp tenderness, jaw pain when chewing and any visual symptom move the case to same-day assessment and immediate steroids.
Related symptoms — Muscles, Bones & Joints
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