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Suggest Treatment For Pain In Sternum And Difficulty In Breathing
Question: I have a constant pain behind the sternum, and I have a hard time breathing. Doctors can't find problem.
Brief Answer:
ah...several points.
Detailed Answer:
We cannot diagnose, prescribe or treat people who are not in front of us, but we can give useful medical information.
There are several ways to approach pain to diagnose it.
First, frankly, is poking it to see what poking triggers pain and that spot is involved with the cause.
STernum and BREATHING pain. The most common cause by far is
costochondritis (arthritis of the joints of the ribcage). The key point is these are painful joints: touching them harshly produces the pain. Anti-inflammatories will lessen it markedly, These joints bear very little weight so an inflammatory condition will be unlikely to produce any damage even visible on any test including MRI or x ray (it tests negative).
Closely related is a disorder in the OTHER DIRECTION: instead of the joints causing the area around it to be limited and painful, irritation of the lungs can prevent movement of air out of the lungs and the expansion of the lungs will stretch the ribs and make them hurt. Besides mostly being in the context of OBVIOUS ASTHMA, studies of the amount of air in the lung and moving through it will show if this is the problem.
Can be heart disease, a stress test with ekg if negative makes this very unlikely.
Tumor, mass, deformity show on all imaging studies of any sort.
Disorders outside of the chest (reflux or other esophageal disorder, or tumors around the sternum) would have different pain patterns and for the tumors, they would show up oon imaging studies.
ah...several points.
Detailed Answer:
We cannot diagnose, prescribe or treat people who are not in front of us, but we can give useful medical information.
There are several ways to approach pain to diagnose it.
First, frankly, is poking it to see what poking triggers pain and that spot is involved with the cause.
STernum and BREATHING pain. The most common cause by far is
costochondritis (arthritis of the joints of the ribcage). The key point is these are painful joints: touching them harshly produces the pain. Anti-inflammatories will lessen it markedly, These joints bear very little weight so an inflammatory condition will be unlikely to produce any damage even visible on any test including MRI or x ray (it tests negative).
Closely related is a disorder in the OTHER DIRECTION: instead of the joints causing the area around it to be limited and painful, irritation of the lungs can prevent movement of air out of the lungs and the expansion of the lungs will stretch the ribs and make them hurt. Besides mostly being in the context of OBVIOUS ASTHMA, studies of the amount of air in the lung and moving through it will show if this is the problem.
Can be heart disease, a stress test with ekg if negative makes this very unlikely.
Tumor, mass, deformity show on all imaging studies of any sort.
Disorders outside of the chest (reflux or other esophageal disorder, or tumors around the sternum) would have different pain patterns and for the tumors, they would show up oon imaging studies.
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Above answer was peer-reviewed by :
Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar
Answered by
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