Severe Pain Ruining my life!

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It started some years ago where i would wake up in the middle of the night in pain between my rib cage low down. This was very sporadic whereby some weeks it would be ok and others not so. I ended up having my bed raised because i believed it was acid. 3 Months ago the pain started to get worse and i was on trials of different medication with an upcoming hospital appointment. I went to the hospital and was diagnosed with a small hitial hernia 5cm and it took me some weeks to recover even from the camera. It felt as if i had crushed my insides!

However in the last two months i'm really starting to wonder if something else is going on. I'm in such severe pain throughout the day , if i go to the gym or if i go out for a drive , even my photography hobby i end up crying in agnoy. I have trouble sleeping and it's woken me up nearly every night , i need sleep .The pain is in the area of the sternum internally , between the rib cage , Sometimes it's very sore to touch around one side of the sternum and below the rib cage. Imagine being cut on the inside and TCP being poured on it. Last week the pain was so bad i felt as if i couldn't breath and became very dizzy. The only slight relief i used to have was stretching right out or putting my arms out as if my whole chest feels cramped.

It also doesn't matter what types of food i have , i don't even belch up heartburn or acid another reason why i don't believe it's the HH

I'm really struggling with life now because it's being ruined

Please Help Me! I've been to the doctors so many times now and my heart results/blood pressure is ok.

p.s I used to be 14stone(UK Weight) now i'm only 11 stone in just a few months

WeatherFreak,

Sorry you're going through this. Perhaps you could try a naturopath? Sometimes an alternate approach can be helpful.

Definitely seek out alternative approaches. Can you do acupuncture? Chinese Medicine? I have had pain relief with those two methods, when regular doctors failed me. Or see a specialist. Hope you can get the help you need! Pain is no fun, no fun at all.

Gallblader , pancreas , lungs e.t.c all scanned today and everything has come back perfectly normal. However when he pushed the ultrasound equipment down my center between my rib caged it was rather painful. Yet he could see nothing on the scan !

I've used acupunture years ago never worked for me

sorry that acupuncture didn't help you. Could your pain be costochondritis? I have been diagnosed with that before.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costochondritis

That was my thought also. I had it in my early 20's and it is quite miserable. X-ray and CT scan revealed nothing abnormal.

NSAIDs help, but it requires large doses--you need to ask a doctor. Some people can handle it and others can't.

In my case, I figured out the cause--when I would play guitar, I would lean over the guitar with the body pressing into my chest between ribs and sternum. When I stopped playing guitar, it eventually went away (after about a year, though). It still twinges to this day.

I'm not allowed to lean at all when doing photography , i'm in alot of pain when i'm out in the car or i used to get it alot when leaning over to fix an engine fault(old car)... However the pain still lingers and has moments of being xtreme

Interesting though , thanks for the replies

Can costochondritis flare up with hot baths?

It might. I think that heat might aggravate it, since it is an inflammatory condition.

hmmm interesting

i've also just read this which is so much like my condition!


-xiphoid-process-pain-tenderness.html


Causes of Pain in Xiphoid Process



What Is Xiphoid Process?





EDIT : Just tried it myself by pushing on my sternum area and sure enough it hurts and has actually made the pain slightly worse ( oops ). I'm wondering if after doing weight training and sometimes too heavy has damaged it in some way. The ultrasound pushed across that area was very painful aswell!

Yeah, if they've ruled out organs and other bits, it's likely musculoskeletal in origin. Might be a stretched or torn pectoral muscle insertion too--they thought that might also have been a cause of mine.

Avoid heat--cold is better for inflammation.

An orthopedic doctor is the best person for this--she can give you the most likely diagnosis and what can be done to alleviate it.

And whatever you do, stop poking at it--you'll just keep it irritated (I had this problem). It's like the old joke:

I tell my doctor, "Doctor, it hurts when I do dat." He say, "Don't do dat!"

http://preview.tinyurl.com/2a9lzp5

Hiya

Hernias don't react well to any kind of physical stress, so your lifting weights isn't helping this situation at all and your doctor should have told you that.

It sounds like you may have a couple of issues.

I would ask for a CBC the next time you see your doc and keep an eye on your leukocytes (white blood cell count), which may indicate a possible infection depending on the ratios of the different types of wbc.

Regards your hernia; try not to lay down after eating for an hour or so. Proton pump inhibitors (nexium, etc) will help with reflux and also ask your doctor to check for barrets esophagus. Barrets isn't the cause, but it's a consideration regards prolonged herniation.

You shouldn't have to suffer in the way that you appear to be suffering - your doctor should at the very least be scheduling you for exploratory surgery and hernia repair.

A hernia isn't always a small deal, you can quite easily die from complications.

I know that some of the other posts suggested a possible inflammatory condition, which is a possibility; however this is unlikely as inflammatory conditions are usually in response to immune deficiencies - as unlikely as that sounds - and you would be feeling the effects of that kind of inflammation throughout your body.

Stay away from any chalky substance which state it'll help you with heart burn, as that actually makes it worse. Stay away from milk, and don't feel bad that your weight is dropping - losing weight is actually a part of the treatment for your type of hernia.

Sleeping propped up on pillows from time to time should also help with the burning pain.