pain in breastbone

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aquaman
aquaman NonActiveMember5yrs Posts: 21
edited 19. Jun 2010, 16:43 in Living with Arthritis archive
hello all
i have been having pain in the centre of my chest for over five years it is like a crunching popping sensation which sometimes travels throught to my shoulders
any information would be much appreciated
thank you
aquaman :

Comments

  • bailey27
    bailey27 NonActiveMember5yrs Posts: 689
    edited 30. Nov -0001, 00:00
    I get pain in the sternum, it wakes me up sometime. When i first got it i thought i was having a heart attack. Since been told that this pain is common in AS.
    This kind of pain is always better to get checked out to rule out other stuff. When I went to the GP Out of hours as I actually did think I was having a heart attack they said that sternum inflammation is very painful and is often mistaken for heart attacks and people often get admitted by ambulance thinking they are having a heart attack becaus ethe pain is so bad.
  • carolanivey
    carolanivey NonActiveMember5yrs Posts: 64
    edited 30. Nov -0001, 00:00
    The place where your ribs connect to your sternum isn't one solid piece of bone - there are fused "joints" there. It's very similar to the separate plates of your skull that are separate in infancy, but join into a solid structure as the child grows.

    It is possible, if you have RA or other inflammatory type of disease, for the rib/sternum area to get sore as well.

    aquaman wrote:
    hello all
    i have been having pain in the centre of my chest for over five years it is like a crunching popping sensation which sometimes travels throught to my shoulders
    any information would be much appreciated
    thank you
    aquaman :
  • minky67
    minky67 NonActiveMember5yrs Posts: 2,328
    edited 30. Nov -0001, 00:00
    Hi, I get this too, mine is called Costochondritis.
    Its basically inflammation of the sternum. I get it all round my rib cage too & into my collar bones plus my breasts are very sore.
    Anti inflammatory's is all they recommend for it.
    I hope it settles down soon for you,best to get it checked out & if you have a rhymy then best to mention it to them as mine was the one that DX mine.
    debs
  • bailey27
    bailey27 NonActiveMember5yrs Posts: 689
    edited 30. Nov -0001, 00:00
    minky67 wrote:
    Hi, I get this too, mine is called Costochondritis.
    Its basically inflammation of the sternum. I get it all round my rib cage too & into my collar bones plus my breasts are very sore.
    Anti inflammatory's is all they recommend for it.
    I hope it settles down soon for you,best to get it checked out & if you have a rhymy then best to mention it to them as mine was the one that DX mine.
    debs

    Thats what they told me, now you have mentioned it it reminded me what they called it.
  • frogmorton
    frogmorton Member Posts: 30,483
    edited 30. Nov -0001, 00:00
    Hi

    I get it too. It's not nice at all and sometimes I can pop my sternum if I arch backwards.

    think it really IS just inflamation.

    Hope this helps

    Hi Debs :)

    you get it too? so does Cris :(

    Love

    Toni xx
  • gickygawky
    gickygawky NonActiveMember5yrs Posts: 478
    edited 30. Nov -0001, 00:00
    Hi there Aquaman,

    I too have this 'Costochronditis' (thanks for the name Deb!) and along with the pain I often get shocked by the crunching sensation when I move a certain way, it literally takes your breath away doesn't it! Funny, because when I explained it to my rheumy like that he looked at me sideways like I was mad! :roll:

    I find that when I have strong vibrations around me like when we drive on a motorway in the car or when I listen to load music/am a a concert it really gets set off - does anyone else get this??

    A x
  • Starburst
    Starburst Member Posts: 2,546
    edited 30. Nov -0001, 00:00
    I get this too. I'm extremely tender and it leaves me feeling breathless. I even went to A&E one time because my chest pain was so bad. :? My GP kept saying "it's your asthma" and he kept prescribing me different inhalers, which didn't do the trick. I take anti-inflammatories and I've started on steroids but, so far, there's been very little improvement.

    It's a very painful condition.
  • bailey27
    bailey27 NonActiveMember5yrs Posts: 689
    edited 30. Nov -0001, 00:00
    Well we are definately not alone peeps. I hate it when I get.a flare at the best of times and any slight feeling I get in my sternum / ribs I am always thinking ' oh not this again' and I wonder what if this really is a heart attack and I am not aware. But then after a few hours it settles down. Not a very pleasant feeling at all.
    I tend to get this pain during the night / early hours and rarely get it during the day. Am I along oin this?
  • gickygawky
    gickygawky NonActiveMember5yrs Posts: 478
    edited 30. Nov -0001, 00:00
    bailey27 wrote:
    Well we are definately not alone peeps. I hate it when I get.a flare at the best of times and any slight feeling I get in my sternum / ribs I am always thinking ' oh not this again' and I wonder what if this really is a heart attack and I am not aware. But then after a few hours it settles down. Not a very pleasant feeling at all.
    I tend to get this pain during the night / early hours and rarely get it during the day. Am I along oin this?

    Hey there,

    I tend to get mine during the day or right in the dead of night. I think I wake myself with it because I roll in my sleep after being in one position too long.
    I also often wake in the night in agony with my neck stuck to one side and I just can't move it for what seems like an eternity - obviously AS but does anyone else get this? How do you get yourself out of it?
  • bailey27
    bailey27 NonActiveMember5yrs Posts: 689
    edited 30. Nov -0001, 00:00
    I get ot but only on hips and very lower back like I can't even turn around or sit up out of bed becaise I feel like it is all stuck together. Then after a cuppa and couple hours of slowly moving around it eases off.

    gickygawky wrote:
    bailey27 wrote:
    Well we are definately not alone peeps. I hate it when I get.a flare at the best of times and any slight feeling I get in my sternum / ribs I am always thinking ' oh not this again' and I wonder what if this really is a heart attack and I am not aware. But then after a few hours it settles down. Not a very pleasant feeling at all.
    I tend to get this pain during the night / early hours and rarely get it during the day. Am I along oin this?

    Hey there,

    I tend to get mine during the day or right in the dead of night. I think I wake myself with it because I roll in my sleep after being in one position too long.
    I also often wake in the night in agony with my neck stuck to one side and I just can't move it for what seems like an eternity - obviously AS but does anyone else get this? How do you get yourself out of it?
  • gickygawky
    gickygawky NonActiveMember5yrs Posts: 478
    edited 30. Nov -0001, 00:00
    Yes me too.
    It's the movement from being absolutely stationary to being ever so slightly mobile which is so, so hard to do - it is just like it is all stuck together isn't it.

    Once I am on the go I am like a different person but the getting going - gosh, I look like something special.

    At home and amongst friends we refer to it as my special robot dance - a flash back to the 80's!! 8)
  • minky67
    minky67 NonActiveMember5yrs Posts: 2,328
    edited 30. Nov -0001, 00:00
    Hi, I think the waking up & getting moving in the mornings is a very hard part of the condition to contend with.
    I struggle to get from my chair to standing then have to hobble into the kitchen to make a cuppa.
    If OH gets up before me he does the tea making as he knows how hard it is for me to get de-stiffened in the morning.
    I think its were we lay in the same position most of the night & just get stiff. I have a bed turner but i still find myself sitting up in the night to turn over.I cant just turn over, just cant do it. my back wont let me. :roll:
    debs
  • puffin
    puffin NonActiveMember5yrs Posts: 67
    edited 30. Nov -0001, 00:00
    This is part of my long list of symptoms too. Although, like many other pains, I have learned to recognise it, it is still at best alarming, at worst excruciating and very frightening.
    An inhaler was prescribed and then a few years later the docs said it was probably inefffective :roll:

    I can feel the pain at the sternum and a matching pain at the back where the same rib is joined to the spine. After a certain amount of exertion the the tightness at the front will be increase and pain will radiate up to my shoulder.
    Taken to hospital several times on the decision of others, I have been told costochronditis. A deeper pain once was thought to be endocarditis. (Given I have widespread inflammation, I think I have had almost every 'itis' possible over the years.)
    Rest helps as does pressing gently on a trigger point ---for me this is slightly to the left of the sternum, where there should be cartilage. This is probably bony in my case, judging by the very white area that shows up on X-ray.
    The worst pain for me is a sensation of having been stabbed in the back and the knife still there. This is no doubt a bulging of disc matter or the slipping of worn facet joints trapping nerves. If bed rest has made me very weak I can dislocate joints very easily just turning over in the middle of the night.

    Ignorance of medical terms long ago caused me a lot of grief. My head buzzed with names, some fully remembered, some hazily after a consultation/examination. Over the years I have become familiar with many as they get repeated and I studied some books on anatomy and physiology so as to learn something about conditions, causes and, above all, self-help. This came about because of lack of explanation for a very long time. Now terms are familiar and it is easy to forget some of my early bafflement.

    So please, if you are as I once was, ask about the unfamiliar names in posts
    facet joints, sacro-iliac joints, sternum, etc.

    Sometimes knowledge is power.

    Puffin
  • puffin
    puffin NonActiveMember5yrs Posts: 67
    edited 30. Nov -0001, 00:00
    PS......

    What is a bed turner? (It is obviously not a partner.)

    Puffin
  • minky67
    minky67 NonActiveMember5yrs Posts: 2,328
    edited 30. Nov -0001, 00:00
    puffin wrote:
    PS......

    What is a bed turner? (It is obviously not a partner.)

    Puffin
    Hi, I got it from social services.
    Its a bar that fits under your bed & has a bar/handle at about were your pillows are. then you can hold onto it to turn over & i also use it to help me get up in the morning.
    If you want to send me your Email address PM me & i can send you a picture of it.it'll be tomorrow as im too tired to do it tonight though.
    Helps me loads.
    debs
  • frogmorton
    frogmorton Member Posts: 30,483
    edited 30. Nov -0001, 00:00
    minky67 wrote:
    puffin wrote:
    PS......

    What is a bed turner? (It is obviously not a partner.)

    Puffin
    Hi, I got it from social services.
    Its a bar that fits under your bed & has a bar/handle at about were your pillows are. then you can hold onto it to turn over & i also use it to help me get up in the morning.
    If you want to send me your Email address PM me & i can send you a picture of it.it'll be tomorrow as im too tired to do it tonight though.
    Helps me loads.
    debs

    Debs!!

    It WAS your partner before you got it though :D

    Love

    Toni xx
  • carolanivey
    carolanivey NonActiveMember5yrs Posts: 64
    edited 30. Nov -0001, 00:00
    frogmorton wrote:
    sometimes I can pop my sternum if I arch backwards.


    Wow, that must feel strange! :shock:
  • puffin
    puffin NonActiveMember5yrs Posts: 67
    edited 30. Nov -0001, 00:00
    Thanks Debs.

    Have remembered that somewhere I have a lightweight ladder device (plastic rungs, rope sides) which I bought for my mother on her return after heart surgery many years ago. She had one on her hospital bed that she could use to haul herself up to sitting position. It fitted around the legs at the bottom of the bed and the ladder part just lay over the duvet. From what you describe, the bed turner is similar. I must look for it as this would be useful to me now.
    Puffin.
  • skezier
    skezier NonActiveMember5yrs Posts: 11,333
    edited 30. Nov -0001, 00:00
    Hi Aquaman,

    I'm another who gets sternum pain, rib pain, clavicle pain, back pain and well its not too nice and they never really explain mine...... For years it was said t be radiating form he spine and neck and now they just tell me its part the pa and also radiating from the spine and neck :roll: Mine now seems to effect the diaphragm and I get pain breathing as well.

    I guess its part the cause but have you run it past your rumo? I just wonder what other people get told :wink: I hope you don't' get it very often and it calms doe very quickly. Take care Cris x

    Hi Puffin,

    The ladder thing sounds quite useful and is it something that comes down from the front? I have a job turning and can't without being awake ad Debs's turner thing from the pictures wouldn't really help, except to turn one side and maybe help to get to a stand fist thing but if that came from the top and coulds be anchored at the sides it might....... In fact I sort of thinking I might be able to make something similar...... Can you describe it a bit more please? Cris x
  • minky67
    minky67 NonActiveMember5yrs Posts: 2,328
    edited 30. Nov -0001, 00:00
    frogmorton wrote:
    minky67 wrote:
    puffin wrote:
    PS......

    What is a bed turner? (It is obviously not a partner.)

    Puffin
    Hi, I got it from social services.
    Its a bar that fits under your bed & has a bar/handle at about were your pillows are. then you can hold onto it to turn over & i also use it to help me get up in the morning.
    If you want to send me your Email address PM me & i can send you a picture of it.it'll be tomorrow as im too tired to do it tonight though.
    Helps me loads.
    debs
    Oh Toni, Cheeky!!! Of course he was :wink::lol::lol::lol: Got to be usefull for something these partners :lol:
    debs

    Debs!!

    It WAS your partner before you got it though :D

    Love

    Toni xx
  • skezier
    skezier NonActiveMember5yrs Posts: 11,333
    edited 30. Nov -0001, 00:00
    Thanks Lynn :D Reckon that's worth a try actually. xx
  • puffin
    puffin NonActiveMember5yrs Posts: 67
    edited 30. Nov -0001, 00:00
    Hi Chris,

    Collywobble's picture is exactly what I have got-- stored somewhere.
    The rope can be looped round the bed legs several times so that the ladder reaches exactly where you want it, the top end say at waist level, over the duvet. There was just enough weight in it to keep it from slipping right off, but then the duvet cover was cotton.
    If you had a synthetic duvet cover it might slide more. You position it as you get into bed. When not needed it can be stored, still attached, under the bed.
    On the scale of things this aid was not too expensive. Try social services first.

    Puffin
  • scarlett
    scarlett NonActiveMember5yrs Posts: 28
    edited 30. Nov -0001, 00:00
    Hi there, I've had this pain on and off since last September, it came to a head in March and I too thought I was having a heart attack and was admitted to hospital. All tests were clear and I was discharged, I researched the subject and found that it is probably costochondritis as the thing that eases the pain most is a head pad.

    Thankfully 2 weeks ago the pain subsided and I haven't had any since, not to say it won't happen again.

    Try the heat pad it really does work.

    Good luck

    Scarlett x
  • salamander
    salamander NonActiveMember5yrs Posts: 1,906
    edited 30. Nov -0001, 00:00
    thanks Lynn,
    glad I am not alone with this. The heat pad solution sounds a good one to me.
    Sally

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