Dear Friend,
As i was reading your post, i felt like you would be around 45 to 55 years age group.
But you have said that you are only 27.
There can be 2 major diagnosis in your case -
1) Rheumatoid Arthritis,
2) Rotator muscle tear causing the same.
However i would suggest you to go for investigations related to RA as that is the major cause of all the symptoms.
Serum ESR / ASO titre / CCP/ RA factor are the basic investigations to be done for diagnosing RA.
Once RA is confirmed, we need to plan a treatment strategy and control the flaring up pattern of the disease.
However if the blood reports are normal, then we would require shoulder MRI scan.
I hope , i was able to explain you the treatment plan.
Regards..
Feel free to discuss more.
thank you very much for your advice since my posting i have also been put on tramadol which seems to help a bit and im going in for more xrays on my sholder. this next week im going to see an osteo-something (Dr.) to discuss my shoulder pain and i am still going to see the rheumatologist in a few weeks and i will ask about all the tests you listed for me. i currently have no health insurance so this has been very hard for me to acomplish! thank you very much for the help!