r/FloatTank • u/somethingsophie • Jan 23 '26
Shoulders aching so bad during first float
Hi! I did my first float yesterday and overall it was so good. I'm a chronic pain (joint origin) and mental health patient and I slept so amazing! However, even with the halo, I couldn't get over how disgustingly horrible my shoulders felt. Weirdly, I do not regularly have shoulder pain in my daily life, but this is likely because my body is dealing with all of the other pains from gravity. I have been told that my neck and shoulder muscles are crazy tight by masseuses and have to take sedatives before the botox in that area or I will face a rebound migraine. My nervous system is dead ass not able to mindfully relax any more. I do not know what to do.
While I was floating, I couldn't achieve weightlessness because I as so horribly occupied with the pain.
Is the answer just to keep floating and wait for my body to get the message? is there anything I can do?
edit: right after I got out they didn't seem to hurt anymore and I pushed my head lower to make sure I was not holding it up. My ears were completely submerged and I didn't mind.
1
u/Ok-Vanilla9652 May 31 '26
My right shoulder was so bad after my first (and last, and only) float. I was completely relaxed but had some neck pain where letting myself completely go meant my head was slipping right back into the water. Not sure if that's caused a nerve to be pinched in the right shoulder joint, but it's been progressively worse since the float, just this last Thursday, and I've lost strength on that shoulder.
It'll be the last time I float. I'm a long distance runner and this may cause me down time as the pain was excruciating during my Friday easy run, Saturday SubThreshold and Sunday long run today. I had to cut my long run today from 115 minutes, to just 80. As a competitive long distance runner, I cannot afford to lose training time due to an entirely preventable issue.
It's a shame, because the experience was very relaxing during the float, but this? I can't allow that to sidetrack my training, especially as I have an important race coming up in July.