Shoulder joint attaches the upper limb to the thorax. It is composed of several joints and muscles acting around it. If you think your shoulders are not equal, it could be due to several reasons.
1. I could be totally normal – Even though humans appear symmetrical at a glance, there could be many differences in the right side and in the left side. Most of the people’s dominant side is said to be a little bigger than the non-dominant side. This is a completely normal phenomenon.
2. Axillary nerve damage – Unequal shoulders could be a result of abnormality of the muscles in the shoulder joint area. One such muscle which frequently get affected is the deltoid muscle. Deltoid muscle makes up the most of the lateral aspect of the arm. Wasting of this muscle results in flattening or reduction of the bulge of the shoulder.
How does the Deltoid muscle get wasted?
Every muscle in our body is supplied by a nerve, which carries the signals which command the muscle to contract. More the muscle contracts, bigger the muscle becomes. Therefore, if you are using one muscle more often, it becomes bigger. That’s how the body builders increase their muscle mass. On the other hand if you are not using your muscle it gets atrophied (reduce in mass)
So, the deltoid muscle also gets atrophied when it is not contracting any more. This occurs when the nerve supplying the deltoid muscle, the axillary nerve is not working. The axillary nerve gets damaged in anterior shoulder dislocations. Therefore, if you have a history of shoulder dislocation, then the most likely cause of your unequal shoulder is the axillary nerve damage.
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