Hello! Thank you for the service you provide and taking the time to listen to people's issues like you do. I'm a 49 year old athletic female. I work out with weights 3x week and do a spin bike 3x a week as well. I'm 5'9" and 150lbs. I do not smoke and only have about 8 drinks a month. I am asthmatic and use a maintenance inhaler once daily and carry a rescue inhaler to use as needed. For the past two months or so I've been experiencing a nagging, dull pain under my left rib cage. It feels like someone 'poking' you. My doctor recently retired and his replacement said this was most likely an intercostal muscle sprain, since he could reproduce the pain by pressing on the rib. (It remained sore after palpation, and still will feel tender if I press there now.) I admittedly had been overdoing it a bit in my workouts, so that seemed on the mark. Concurrently, though, I'd started to notice a correlation of the pain appearing after I'd eaten burgers, tomatoes or coffee. Especially coffee (which I'd only started drinking about 8 months ago). A different doctor believes I have both the muscle sprain AND an acid problem or possible ulcer. The pain now sometimes can be felt closer to the middle of my sternum, along with a quick 'flash' of pain. I don't feel burning in my esophagus but I did experience sulfur 'burps' once. The pains seem to be coming a bit closer together now depending upon what I eat. A tuna sandwich with tomato and onion caused intense pain that felt like the terminator was reaching into my chest. Dark chocolate can bring it on. I've lost my appetite out of fear of the pain coming on, but sometimes if I don't eat I'll get a strange, 'gnawing' pain anyway. I've been put on 40mg daily of pantoprazole and am scheduled to get an h pylori test this week. I also still get the pain if I bike too hard or hunch over the handle bars. The doctor said the intercostals are notoriously slow to heal and the action of my diaphragm heaving will bring it on. I've temporarily stopped lifting weights. I've never had any GI issues before so I'm concerned. I've modified my diet to eat nothing spicy or greasy. I was worried at first about it having to do with my heart because it's under my left rib. It's worth mentioning that in late February I had inflamed lungs and an acute asthmatic attack. I was put on steroids and singulair. (I had a chest x ray to check for pneumonia too.) My blood pressure went into the 140's to 150's over 100 ish for the first time ever, but went back to my usual circa 115/72 about a week and a half after I finished those meds. The doctor even did an EKG and bloodwork because I was having heart palpitations. Both were normal. This mysterious rib pain appeared soon after. I would appreciate your input as to whether you believe I do indeed have a dual problem here. I welcome any additional input you can offer or things or conditions I should keep in mind or look out for... Thank you for you time.