pain in left part of chest when i breathe (non lifting injury)

[Tallnstrong]

has anybody had it? right now it hurts while i breathe and it stops when i lay down...it is a bit left like below my nipple like a short stabbing pain i had it before but it lasted for a few min. but now it hurts from yesterday...and it can hurt as hell

i am going to the doctor in a couple of hours...just wanted to ask if anybody ever had such pains and maybe knows what it is?

[subterfuge]

Let us know what you find out. I think I may have actually had the same thing. I was sitting in theh pub before a football game I was due to play in and I got a weird pain as you described, which got real bad if i tried to breathe 'deeply'. Went away after 15 minutes or so.

[Tallnstrong]

yeah it seems that all people have a moment when they have trouble breathing but this lasts already 24 hours but it is calming down...atleast it seems right now

[melon]

There's a large number of things that could cause this, though most likely it is muscular pain. Other differentials include things like pneumothorax, pleurisy, pericarditis. You didn't mention what side the pain was so that's all I can really say at the moment.

[Tallnstrong]

it is on the left side from my point fo view (where the heart is),1'' bellow and a bit left of my left nipple and it hurts when i breathe...i doubt it is muscular pain because i have no problems moving my arm or contracting my chest...and i don't have fever so pericarditis is out,also i don't cough so pneumothorax is also out if my medical glossary isn't wrong...and pleurisy well i am no doctor so i can't judge based on the diagnosis in my book


right now i also checked on wikipedia pleuritis is also excluded for the same reasons as pericarditis and pneumothorax...what a relief

[Fresch]

You can get that type of pain when you have an inflamed joint where the rib joins the spine. As you breathe, the rib moves a little, irritates the joint and gives you a shooting pain similar to what you described.

Settles with some anti-inflamatory medication and a bit of rest usually. If the joint was stiff, may benefit from a bit of physiotherapy.

Long term look at posture and some lifting techniques that may have caused the sprain in the first place.

[exnihillo]

I had something similar a few months ago..I went to the doc and after a blood test it was found that I was producing a lot of a certain enzyme ( can not remember the name) that was causing the pain..

[melon]

There's rarely a cough with spontaneous pneumothorax. If you have a stethoscope, listen to the painful area as you breathe and compare the sounds to the same place on the other side. Are they quieter or not there, or normal? Spontaneous pneumo's are quite rare, but they do happen.

The pain is right at the apex of the heart which is what pointed me to pericarditis. As it is a stabbing pain at a specific localisation, it will not be anything ischaemic (angina, heart attack etc).

I still think it is muscular however, regardless of what you can move or not.

What did the doc say, if you've been yet?

[Leenad]

I had this before when I got kicked in the ribs. You might have hurt them and have to wait for them to heal.

[Tallnstrong]

There's rarely a cough with spontaneous pneumothorax. If you have a stethoscope, listen to the painful area as you breathe and compare the sounds to the same place on the other side. Are they quieter or not there, or normal? Spontaneous pneumo's are quite rare, but they do happen.

The pain is right at the apex of the heart which is what pointed me to pericarditis. As it is a stabbing pain at a specific localisation, it will not be anything ischaemic (angina, heart attack etc).

I still think it is muscular however, regardless of what you can move or not.

What did the doc say, if you've been yet?

no i am going tommorow morning, i read in your bodyspace that you are a medical student...do you think this is serious? because right now i don't know if i should go to the doctor or not since the pain is getting weaker and i can breathe more easily...maybe it will go away if i wait a bit...

[james_scott]

I am suffering from this exact same inury as we speak, same place too. I suffered this injury roughly 2 1/2 weeks ago, splitting a 60lb'er of vodka with a buddy.. I woke up not remembering much but god damn was my ribs hurting. It is extremely painful when I cough or sneeze but the pain is minimal when I'm performing my regular day to day. I figured it was just a bruised rib and would take care of itself but as I said, its been 2 weeks and it can get pretty sore when sneezing or coughing.

Is there any sort of generalized time frame one should expect to heal from a bruised rib? I thought 2 weeks or so I would have been fine, no problems but it can still hurt pretty bad.

[melon]

no i am going tommorow morning, i read in your bodyspace that you are a medical student...do you think this is serious? because right now i don't know if i should go to the doctor or not since the pain is getting weaker and i can breathe more easily...maybe it will go away if i wait a bit...

It's getting better, it's muscular. You'll be fine in a couple of days.

[BBLaw30]

I've had pains similar to the ones you described where I would feel sharp pains right under my left peck i though it was like inside my chest but it turned out it was caused because my ribs and back were misaligned and it went all the way over to where they connect to the sternum. A chiropractor solved the problem in 5 minutes.

[King Viscera]

has anybody had it? right now it hurts while i breathe and it stops when i lay down...it is a bit left like below my nipple like a short stabbing pain i had it before but it lasted for a few min. but now it hurts from yesterday...and it can hurt as hell

i am going to the doctor in a couple of hours...just wanted to ask if anybody ever had such pains and maybe knows what it is?

ya, ive had it before about 6 months ago. It lasted like 3 weeks, it was freaking me out. I ended up going to the hospital and getting chest x-rays which came out negative. Then it went away like a week after that. It was a pulled muscle apperantly and I took some muscle relaxents to relieve the pain.