Kickas.org Forums Ankylosing Spondylitis General Discussion #1 AS Web Support Group Costochondritis help

I am suffering with severe pain in my chest and upper back. Everything in that area is painful to the touch. Hurts to breathe. I’m assuming it is Costochondritis. What does everyone do to help this?

Good evening, lulu12! I am very sorry to read you are suffering extreme pain in your chest and upper back.

While I am truly not a doctor I certainly suggest you do go see either your regular doctor or Emergency department. Any time a person has the type of pain you are experiencing it certainly does help to rule out 'heart attack', 'gall bladder attack' or, yes, a severe Costochondritis attack.

When I experienced my first Costochondritis attack it scared the living daylights out of me. I immediately attended my hospital's Emergency department to be checked out as I feared I was having a heart attack.

Luckily I was not and a couple of Tylenol took care of my pain.

As it has been a few days since your post appeared, I am assuming everything is A-1 OK your way. Please let us know. - Magician -

I had it when I was a teenager. It was aggravated by stress for me. (alcoholic parents) If you can tolderate NSAIDS they did provide relieve. If price of health care isnt an issue good to rule out othe issues.

I hope you've been in to be checked at this point, since several months have now gone by. Chest pain is not to be trifled with ... says the woman who's been living with costochondritis right above her heart, with incredible neck, shoulder, chest, shoulder blade ligament/tendon/muscle tensions all around that area. I honestly think I could have a heart attack and not know it because of the constant pressures and stresses there.

I'm going to request and ECG when I see my GP next week. He's freaking about my cholestorol, which I have proved to myself can be controlled by what I eat because I'm sure as hell not going on Statins. I have enough pain, muscle aches, and fogginess, thank you. That said, there was a day in January when I wondered.

Hope it was really costo and not your heart!

Love and light.

I had constriction regularly and periodically in the chest and it can be scary. It was not connected with upper back pain. A couple years or more of taking Enbrel (a biologic) completely reversed it, along with all kinds of other inflammations. The Enbrel, of course, did nothing for my uveitis (although astaxanthin did) or for my horrific gut problem, which brought me here.

Geoo, I'm glad Enbrel has helped. It is not one that is good for fighting uveitis or gut issues. I have a 40 year history of uveitis and gut issues that were both covered by Remicade at first. I stopped responding, unfortunately, as it was brilliant (not all people have this happen) and I was put on Enbrel. I wasn't diagnosed with the gut issues until the first year of lockdown, at which point I was switched to Humira, which does work on both uveitis and gut issues. You might talk to your rheumatologist about a switch.

White light and love.

Inanna - I was started with Humira, and just like with Enbrel, I am highly sensitive to stuff like drugs, and I knew in two days that something dramatic was happening. Humira worked great except that it was gradually become intolerable. I barely hung on with it and then had to stop for surgery. I resumed Humira after surgery but it stopped working and only made me very sick. I was forced to stop fairly quickly. Then I was prescribed Enbrel and it works with no known to me undesirable side effects. It's stayed effective for many years now and astaxanthin keeps the otherwise repeated periods of uveitis in check. It's the gut related problems that are off the chart even though I don't have discomfort there and I don't match up symptom-wise with a known IBD, yet I'm sure I have a severe one and more.