I’ll take gallstones for $100, Alex.
At least, mine got so bad that I couldn’t even breathe without pain.
The only people I’ve seen with tracheitis have been desperately unwell- septic, short of breath, just awful looking. I’d put that one far down on the maybe list.
Costochondritis, pericarditis and pleurisy would be high on the list of possible diagnoses, with PE as a serious cause requiring diagnostic exclusion.
If you saw me I’d probably check your vital signs, listen to your chest and check your legs for swellings.
Depending on my gestalt analysis (gut feeling about whether or not you are seriously unwell) I may then order chest xray, blood tests and a heart tracing.
Let us know how it went!
Missed it by that much. The pain from gallstones is usually referred pain and can show up almost anywhere. Mine was mostly in my back, but when the doctor pushed down on it (saying ‘does it hurt when . . .’) smaller pains in the oddest places flared.
An odder way that I got chest pains once was by going to an hour-long juggling practice when I hadn’t juggled in months. Sometimes you just pull or overwork odd chest muscles.
Pericarditis was ruled out, along with any other heart issues. There was nothing on the chest X-ray, my O2 level was 98. Blood pressure and heart perfect. Lungs and heart were listened to carefully and were just the way they should be. Legs were checked for swelling (none). EKG was perfect.
Since I have no other symptoms other than the pain in my chest, we are leaning toward pleurisy, with PE not bring totally ruled out. Because I don’t smoke, am not on the pill, and haven’t just finished a long plane/bus/car ride, he did a blood test to check for clots (D3 something, I think it was called) rather than a cat scan to avoid exposing me to unnecessary radiation. I was given a depo-steroid shot and was told to take 3 advils twice a day. PE test results should be back by Friday.
I am to call him if something changes before we speak again. If the PE test is negative, I am to follow up again on Tuesday if pain is not gone.
Looked it up, blood test is called d-dimer.
Sounds like the doc did everything I would have. A D-dimer does have some false positives but very few false negatives so if it’s normal you’re usually OK.
Can I just add-great username/post combo!
Sounds like a classic case of Smurf Lung to me.
Glad all the investigations were reassuring , hope you’re feeling better!