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Dr. Andrew Rynne
MD
Dr. Andrew Rynne

Family Physician

Exp 50 years

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What Causes Radiating Pain In Back, Shoulder Blades, Hips And Rib Cage Area?

For the last two days I have had back pain from the shoulder blades down to my hip area and in my rib cage area. It feels like sore muscles but I ve not been exercising. I m a 65 year old female in good health. I m taking losartan for high blood pressure. My blood pressure has been in the 120/80 range in the last week. What do you think could cause me this pain. I did take 2 Aleve last night.
Sat, 8 Oct 2016
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General & Family Physician,  's  Response
Hello.

Since you have not been exercising or have had any trauma or injury, we can rule out musculoskeletal pain.

We then have to think of causes arising from either the spinal cord or the heart.

Pain due to pressure over the spinal cord would present in a somewhat similar way but would also have weakness of one or more limbs, tingling srnsation or numbness in addition to back pain. So according to me we can rule that out too.

Pain due to blockage in the heart vessels oe even due to aortic dissection can present in a similar way. The likelihood increases with your age and presence of hypertension, even though it is well controlled. I would advise earliest consultation with a physician, an EKG and an Echocardiogram to rule out possible serious causes.

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Dr Geeta
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What Causes Radiating Pain In Back, Shoulder Blades, Hips And Rib Cage Area?

Hello. Since you have not been exercising or have had any trauma or injury, we can rule out musculoskeletal pain. We then have to think of causes arising from either the spinal cord or the heart. Pain due to pressure over the spinal cord would present in a somewhat similar way but would also have weakness of one or more limbs, tingling srnsation or numbness in addition to back pain. So according to me we can rule that out too. Pain due to blockage in the heart vessels oe even due to aortic dissection can present in a similar way. The likelihood increases with your age and presence of hypertension, even though it is well controlled. I would advise earliest consultation with a physician, an EKG and an Echocardiogram to rule out possible serious causes. Hope this helps. Regards, Dr Geeta