# a pain coming from my back at the top through my chest- hurts when i breath in?



## katiebabe

Hi allI was wonderin if anyone has this symptom. I don't have it very often the last time was about 3months ago, and it last 3days and then a few weeks earlier it lasted a couple days.It started this afternoon the exact same pain.Its in my back mainly inline with my chest- it hurts when I breath in, I don't know what makes it come on as I can't see any pattern at all.Does anyone else get this?Its unplesant especially through the nightK x


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## BQ

Maybe an esophageal spasm??? If you have any anti-spasmodic meds take them. If you don't, try some peppermint tea or capsules or even strong peppermints. Hope you feel better.


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## erinelizabeth

I noticed a pain like that before when I pulled a chest muscle. However, that not having much to do with ibs, not sure if that is what is going on with you. Is it radiating from your back? Or from your chest to your back?


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## katiebabe

Erinelizabeth- The pain is in my back radiating to my chest- at least that's how it feels. Sudden movement hurts like jumping back onto the sofa etc.I've never heard of a spasm there bq, however I take peppermint tablets before every meal but I never notice an effect. Haven't been taking antispasmodics for a while now but I will try them and see if they help thanks.


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## AmericanPatriot

Maybe a Precordial Catch Syndrome?Does it stop very suddenly?


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## BQ

I have had esophageal spasms and they are no fun... trust me. So try the anti spasmodics and or heat may help. I hesitate to even say the word "heat".... because it is supposed to be 99 degrees here today... So lol you may not like that option if it is that hot where you are.... lol


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## katiebabe

It is raining and miserable where I live! But I've tried heat when its been bad and it didn't do anything. I will try antispasmodics though.Yes it does come suddenly- it went when I fell asleep as it has been fine all day today but other times I've had it its lasted through the night to the next day. Its weird. Feels like a 30stone man is sat on my back!!!


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## Khethma

Have you been for a chest x-ray or had your white blood count checked? This is almost textbook pleurisy. Pleurisy is inflammation of the lining of the lungs and chest. Your lungs basically have an inner and out lining, and if you get infection or inflammation between those layers, it causes excruciating pain when you take a deep breath because the two layers rub together and they are not supposed to. Your doctor will even be able to hear the rubbing if he/she listens to your breathing. In really bad cases, you can feel the rubbing yourself as your breath. The pain is typically made much worse when you lie on your back. It's usually caused by some sort of chest/lung infection, but the tricky thing is that you can have pleurisy without having a cough, fever, or any other symptoms. The Wikipedia page on pleurisy is actually pretty good: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleurisy.This happened to me a few years ago, and it sent me to emergency thinking I was having a heart attack. It turned out that my white blood count was slightly elevated and my chest x-ray showed the very beginnings of a deep lung infection. Two weeks of antibiotics cleared it up easily. I had no other symptoms of a lung infection. No cough or anything. And it came on really fast. I felt fine in the morning, developed a mild ache between my shoulder blades after lunch, and by 5 pm I couldn't breath and the pain was 9/10 (my ten being when I snapped my collarbone in two). It radiated from between my shoulder blades through my chest into my breast bone. I couldn't lie on my back for three days, but then the pain subsided and I got better.Last winter, my common-law husband had the same thing. He had no symptoms of a cold or infection. He just had a little bit of chest and back pain, and then suddenly he started coughing up blood. A trip to the emergency showed he had a high white count and his x-ray showed some bronchial infection. His pleurisy took over two weeks to subside on antibiotics, and it came back a couple months later, and he's had a couple more mild cases since. It can be very hard to get rid of, so the best course of action to get it properly cleared up is to get a diagnosis and onto antibiotics ASAP.


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## AmericanPatriot

Khethma said:


> This is almost textbook pleurisy.


No, it's not.You can't tell someone they have "textbook pleuritis" just because they have pain when they breathe in.There could be multiple causes of this. More information is needed.


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## katiebabe

Last time when it last 3days I did go to the doctors and he listened to my chest and just looked at me like I was crazy and said it most likely neuropathic pain!I've had numorous blood tests through my gastroenterologist over the last year so I'm guessing they have checked my white blood countXx


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## BQ

Here is some info on the esophageal spasms: http://www.webmd.com/digestive-disorders/tc/esophageal-spasm-topic-overviewAnd:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001334/Hope you get some sunshine today!


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## katiebabe

Thankyou! Its meant to be our summer but all its done is rained! Xx


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## LuSmith

I suffer with acid reflux and I get pains like that. Have you looked into the possibility? I'm guessing you live in the UK lol, it has been bucketing it down here.


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## Khethma

AmericanPatriot said:


> No, it's not.You can't tell someone they have "textbook pleuritis" just because they have pain when they breathe in.There could be multiple causes of this. More information is needed.


I did say "almost textbook." I'm not saying that it definitely "is pleuritis" (pleurisy). Chest pain could be any number of things. There are many, many things that can cause chest pain. Check out this website from e-radiology.net for a pretty big list of causes of chest pain: http://www.e-radiography.net/radpath/c/chest_pain.htm. And you are right, more information is needed. But, here is the description of pleurisy summarized from various sources like Web MD, US National Institutes of Health, Mayo Clinic, etc.: 
The primary symptom of pleurisy is a sharp, sudden, intense pain on breathing (usually drawing in a breath), coughing, sneezing, or chest movement. The pain tends to come and go, but it can also be a dull ache that radiates through the chest in mild cases.

Depending on the location of the infection/inflammation in the lung, the pain can be felt in the shoulder, neck, or abdomen.
 
The pain is usually worsened by lying down.

The pain is usually felt over the location of the inflammation or infection in the chest.

Another major symptom is relief from the pain when you stop breathing.

There may or may not be coughing, fever, etc. Whether or not there is depends on whether or not the underlying cause is an infection. However, even with an infection, a person might not have any other symptoms besides the pain. Or, the pain could be the first symptom, with the fever, cough, etc. coming later.

A sound made by the rubbing of the pleura (the lining around the lungs) can usually be heard when the doctor listens to your breathing, but sometimes it is faint or masked by the fluid. Hearing the rubbing pretty much definitely means you have pleurisy, but not hearing it does not necessarily mean you don't have it.
So the only way to definitively rule out pleurisy is by having other tests like a chest x-ray and blood tests. Also, the blood tests should be done while you have symptoms. If you don't have pain, then you might not have the infection right then, so your white count would probably be normal. This sounds a lot like what was described in the original post. Perhaps katiebabe will let us know if this fits or not. Even if it doesn't, it might fit other people with these symptoms who read this thread. My concern was that people tend to assume that you have to have a cough or a cold or fever, etc. to have pleurisy/a chest infection. The truth is, in some cases of pleurisy/pain when breathing, the person has a lung infection like bronchitis or pneumonia but doesn't have any other symptoms, just the back/chest pain, and without good, timely antibiotic treatment, if it is caused by a chest infection, it can keep coming back and be very difficult to get rid of. And in some cases, the pleurisy is being caused by something other than a bacterial or viral infection, so it doesn't always get properly diagnosed or treated.The point is that pleurisy is actually a very common cause of this sort of chest pain, it is usually caused by a chest infection, and it can be easily overlooked.


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## katiebabe

Khethma- thankyou for your solid advice on pleurisy, I am very grateful.Yes I do agree that it sounds very much like my symptom, however would the pain come and go so irregular? I hadn't experienced it in about 3months since the previous time it lasted 3days.If I do continue to experience it I will go back to the doctors and put the idea forward.Thankyou again Lusmith- I do get slight acid reflux after meals but not to bad, more beltching- never pain in my chest, its more a pain which feels like its from my back radiating to my chest if u get me. And yes I'm from the uk how could you tell lol the weather has been so bizarre! We seem to get our summer earlier and earlier each year.Bq-thansk for all the info and links on esophageal spasms I certainly feel more aware of what could be happening than before. Thanks again K xx


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## Little Hedgehog

I often have these types of pain that radiate to the back when having a severe episode of reflux.


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## katiebabe

Thnx hedgehog I will bare that in mind, I do get sicky burps every evening but not too often. I don't get burning in my chest or anything just sick coming up espesh after a meal x


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