Away we go...rib/chest pain & cancer

[LondonJulz]

Hi all!


    I did counseling last year and it really, truly helped me!  I posted on here back in September about a breakthrough I had in my counseling session and about how it all but took away my anxieties.

    Fast forward 4 months and here I am.   

    For the past 2-3 months I've had this dull/burning pain 2-3 inches above my right breast, and a couple of inches from my sternum (about half way between my sternum and armpit). I don't feel it all the time.  I normally only feel it when I turn a certain way in bed or when I set my shoulder or move a certain way. It doesn't hurt when I press on it.  However, when I'm turned a certain way and it hurts - I can alleviate the pain by pressing in different places around my chest)  I didn't really think a whole lot about it at first.  My husband had been really sick for the last 6 months of last year so I had to take care of the entire house 24-7, plus kids, plus school full time, plus the holidays.  There were also a couple of days mixed in there where I slept wrong and had horrible neck pain for a couple of days and the horrible back pain the second time I slept wrong.  I can't even remember when it was that this thing started or the circumstances surrounding it.  The pain isn't breathtaking or stabby.  It doesn't affect my day to day activities.

     I decided to go to a chiropractor for the first time in my nearly 33 years of existence.  I thought that maybe I was out of alignment.  At the first appointment he cracked me every which way.  Then I made the HUGE mistake of googling  Honestly, I was only googling how soon after a chiropractic adjustment I would feel better.  Instead I found a bazillion horror stories about chiropractors.  So, I talked myself out of going again.

     I set up an appointment with my GP the week after.  My appointment with the GP was one week ago yesterday.  I told him my symptoms; the type of pain, the location, etc.  He had me stand up and he pressed into my back to see if it hurt any place on my back.  He listened to my lungs.  I told him about the chiropractor.  etc. He mentioned that he didn't think it was my heart at all (side note - I hadn't even thought at ALL that it might be my heart) He said that he was almost positive it was musculoskeletal. He gave me 3 different meds to take (naproxen and a muscle relaxer for the chest/rib pain and a decongestant for unrelated sinus pressure).  Then - my sweet, wonderful doctor - who doesn't know about my hypochondriac brain - uttered those amazing words "what is your family history with breast cancer"    I told him that I had a great aunt who passed from it in her 50's, years ago.  And that I just had my annual with my ObGyn last October and she did the breast exam but didn't feel anything.   So, he said "we'll give the medicine I'm giving you one week - if you don't feel any kind of relief from the pain then we'll need to get you scanned to see what's going on under there"  Well, a week passed and I felt no difference at all with the medication (although, points for me for not googling the medicine at ALL to see what the side affects could be - typically that's my first line of action when I have medicine to take)
   
      I called my Dr. yesterday morning to report that the pain hadn't subsided at all.  His office called back yesterday afternoon to say that he's ordered a chest X-ray and an EKG (????).  I was able to go to outpatient yesterday to get the chest x-ray (do they normally tell you if things look good?  Or not?  They didn't say anything to me at all.  The lady had me sit in the room so she could make sure the x-rays "took".  She came in and said "you can go get dressed now" and then she led me to the exit door.  That in itself was freaky.  The hospital has to call me to schedule the EKG.

    This part is where my brain comes in.  For 4 months I haven't questioned or googled or even given any thought to any pains in my body.   Even when I started having this pain, I didn't google.  I only went to the Dr. because I thought that since the pain had been there for a couple of months that it wasn't necessarily normal. 

   But now, I've allowed myself to give in to the anxiety.  I feel exhausted - part of me says that the exhaustion is from all the anxiety from the past week...then there's part of me that thinks that it's a "symptom".

   I'm fearing cancer.  Big time.  Breast cancer, bone cancer, lung cancer, cancer somewhere else that has metastasized to my bones.  It's like I have spiraled.   

    I haven't had an panic attacks (yet) - but I just feel like a nervous wreck all day.  My sweet husband is so great with me.  He's convinced it's nothing major and that it's a pinched nerve somewhere from the few times I slept wrong.  But I just can't rationalize that.  I have a dear friend who hasn't yet learned the fine art of talking to someone with hypochondria.  I was trying to open up to her about my health anxieties and all she said was that she's convinced that stress can cause cancer. (Oh, I laughed - I know she was trying to help but that she hasn't learned the P's and Q's of what to say and what not to say).

    Has anyone had any similar pains like this at all?  Do they typically not give any kind of word about x-rays after they've taken them? 

[ninigigglez]

I can sort of relate. I have had a horrible pain in my back where my ribs are. It is a constant burning pain. I was poregnant when it developed and I went to the ER thinking it was a gallbladder attack. After the doctor assured me it wasnt my gallbladder and said it was from being pregnant and the baby was pushing on a nerve, I went home still in pain and terrified of it being something worse. Now i do smoke and i smoked during my pregnancy due to being too stressed and anxious to quit, so of course lung cancer came to mind. So now that i have had my baby the pain is still there and I am terrified. My mind always goes to the worst case scenario. Im so scared of dying and leaving my children behind...

[Evap]

If there's something seriously off on your X-Ray, they won't let you leave the hospital. I think you're going to be okay and you shouldn't let anxiety get you this time!

[Hohum]

Pain that's alleviated or aggravated by pushing in certain areas or by twisting a certain way sounds very muscular to me. I have had chest/back/flank pain for years and after a barrage of scans, tests, etc, it was classified as muscular. I actually got the most relief going for deep tissue massage treatment, it really helped.

Also don't read into what the technician does or doesn't do at your scan. I have heard this time and again and experienced it personally - freaking out because the tech went quiet, looked serious all of a sudden, looked at you with concern, whatever. It doesn't mean anything at all! If they see anything that looks really, obviously wrong they would very likely have asked you to wait while they consulted with a Doctor. If not, the radiologist will review your x-ray and get back to you if there's anything to follow up on.

The bigger question is, why is your anxiety flaring up again? It sounds like you were doing so well!

[vardnas]

Hey Julz,

Question:  do you still go to counseling? If not, I recommend that you go back.

These musculoskeletal issues are tricky. I agree with Hohum that things like deep tissue massage and the like are more beneficial than a painkiller prescription a lot of the time. I've found doctors to be less than helpful when it comes to managing chronic pain because all they do is hunt for the cause of it. That investigation of course leads to scads of testing which, as you're already learning, just leads to more anxiety for us.

I've had similar issues. I had pain in my lower ribs for MONTHS that only went away after I reduced my stress and exercised it out. More recently, back in September, I started having mild pelvic pain on and off, accompanied by weird discharge. These were legitimate, non-anxiety-driven things happening in my body and I figured I had a cyst, which I looked up on the internet (after months of not looking anything up), just for confirmation, and like you I was so surprised to read scary things. Reading about cysts caused me to focus more on the pain, which only made it worse, which only fed more into the anxiety, and I'm soon so stressed out that I'm having mid-cycle bleeding and run to the doctor. She, doing everything a prudent doctor would do, ordered an ultrasound and a spate of blood tests, which ALL came back normal. I'm not insured, by the way, so that was almost $1000 out of pocket for all of that. So even me, who hasn't had to deal with health anxiety for so long, fell into the same old trap.

The thing to keep in mind is that your anxiety over the pain seemed only to have increased after you indulged your negative reinforcement behaviors, namely googling and visiting the doctor. And that will happen every single time, because they're proven anxiety triggers. Keep that fact in mind INSTEAD of giving in to your old, anxious thought patterns. Take what you learned in therapy and apply it. Don't let the doctor's suggestions of breast cancer or heart problems sway you—again, he's being prudent, but he just doesn't have the whole picture.

[NeverAgain1]

London....

Please read my recent posts on all this.  I think you can do it by just clicking on my name.
I had the same thing. Believe me, especially with negative tests, it is anxiety.
The very last post I did about this I tried to explain it both anatomically and psychologically.

Do not Google on it, because you will find thousands of posts on this kind of pain, with people undergoing test after inconclusive test, and never with any conclusive results, except for the very few who finally understand that it is anxiety and that they need to treat it, get counseling or even take anti-anxiety meds for a time.

[Paty8804]

I am experiencing the extact type of pain on my right chets.. I also freaked out at first..but now I barely pa attention to it....is mostly when I move a certain way.... so I know for sure is muscular..(at least thats my logic).... I have a 30 pound baby...and this pain started about 3 months ago too... I havent felt anything esle besides that.. and I notice that is only when I move in a certain way....