mystery pain

My story begins a long time ago, about ten years. I was on holiday and suddenly felt an ache in the front of my chest, which at the time I described as shoulder pain, but the pain originated from lower than that, around the first rib as i found out later.  This pain is chronic, dull, comes and goes, can stay a day or two weeks, , I have seen many specialists, had injections into the site of the pain, I have had all the tests, mri, cat scan, bone scan, xrays, so far not one of the doctors can find the cause of the pain. This pain has taken over my whole life, I currently take, solpadol, palexia, vimovo and lyrica. The only thing that helps to relieve the pain a little is a hot water bottle, sometimes medication just doesn't work.  I also suffer with nerve pain which radiates down my arm across the front of my chest and up to my neck. I also have trigeminal neuralgia, which although isn't too bad at the moment ,seemed to start with one side of my face being numb then gradually nerve pain followed slowly, this comes and goes.

I have not been able to sleep on my left side for years due to the pain.  It is nothing to do with my heart, thats fine!   It is definitely to do with the sternum, rib area.  Also I have neck problems and have 3 bulging discs in my neck and the pain that goes with that.

I am reaching a point where I am so sick of being in pain and cannot seem to get any answers.  Im glad i found this forum and maybe somebody out there suffers with the same thing.  I should also add that on ocassion one of my finger joints swells up, same side, no cause found,I have tendonitis in both wrists, which also on ocassion are very weak.  Pain in my arm and hand on left side.  Doctors said it is not costochondritis as it has gone on too long.  Not thoracic outlet syndrome either.  Mri cervical spine shows some scoliosis at the cervical thoracic junction, Disc bulging at a number of levels in the mid cervical spine most significantly on the left side at c5/6 and c6/7.  This is the only mri report that I have a copy of.  Any thoughts would be appreciated. 

Wow, I am sorry for your pain and all this crud you have to go through. It isn't easy when you have an unknown medical condition that you can't pinpoint--but that you definitely are feeling every day of your life!!

I really don't know much about chest pain, or things of that nature, so all I can really do is send you my support. Also, if you do want some reports to read yourself--you have every right to ask for the MRI disk and/or paper reports from the hospital you had them done or the physician that ordered them. Sometimes you read over stuff and notice something that your doctor didn't talk to you about, but that another doctor may be able to explain to you. Just a thought.

But yeah, please update us when you get some news or just need to talk. I really hope you pin this down, or at the very least get some relief from the symptoms!

Hi Mystery and welcome to Healing Well's chronic pain forum. I am glad that you found us but very sorry that you have to be here.

I know your drs have said it is not costochondritis, have you done any research on the internet about this condition? If not, perhaps you should. I know of people that have this condition and the pain and some of your symptoms very much sound like theirs. Not getting any kind of definitive diagnosis is so hard. Sometimes we just have to keep pushing the drs and keep trying to find a dr that is really listening and willing to try and help us. Lots of times that means seeing different drs. I would not give up, I would keep pushing for answers.

Have you considered perhaps going to a teaching hospital and be seen by their drs? If not, it may be something to consider. The teaching hospital help lots of people that no one else seem to be able to help many times.

It has been quite a while since we have had anyone here at the forum with costochondriitis, however, I suggest you use the search feature here and see if you can pull up any posts about it. The search feature is at the top on the right and just type in costochondritis and see if any posts pop up. If you will look in CP101 there is a list of teaching hospitals and you can look to see what one would be the closest to where you live.

Anyway, I wanted to pop on and tell you welcome aboard. Take care.

MPG - You said many specialists. Have you been to a pain clinic or seen a physiatrist, rheumatologist or anesthesiologist who does pain injections? You said you have had injections at the site of the pain. Did they inject the spine or the shoulder or the rib? I've had rib injections when I really needed a spine nerve ablation, saw a different doc who got the job done.

I know they aren't really thinking much about it, but your CT sounds suspicious of pinched nerves in the spine (to me, just a patient). It doesn't take much of a bulge in a disk or a bit of scoliosis to do the job. I've got the problem in the lumbar area, but mine is partly due, but not all, to a tiny bit of arthritis. It often takes a second or third injection to lessen the pain.

If you do a bit of online research, including the resources at the top of the forum page, you will find that a lot of spine pain is self-correcting if you can just get pain relief long enough for it to heal. It's worked for me. Unfortunately I've got a new pain that suddenly cropped up, so I'll have to call my pain doc about another injection.

The sub sternum pain can be something different. It can be heart or stomach or hiatal hernia. I would see a heart doc just to check, but also a gastroenterologist to look for a hernia. Been that route too.