I've found out through many visits to the doctor that I don't have a heart condition but rather I have costochondritis which is inflamation of the cartilage that connects a rib to the breastbone. It exactly mimics heart pain and makes me super anxious.
What can I do to solve this? I'm taking MSM power and turmeric for anti-inflammatory effects and doing the specific rib-opening stretches which all help but I still get flare ups. What else can I do to get rid of this?
Foam roller, helped my intercostal muscles so it might help that. Just be gentle so you don't oops your sternum
Cheers anon. That reminds me to need to be foam rolling.
Can this happen anywhere on your ribs? It’s directly over my heart (far away from sternum) and sometimes the pain transfers to my underarm. Doctors have cleared me multiple times and done bloods to make sure it’s not a heart condition, but it still fricks me up especially coupled with anxiety.
You might just be freaking out honestly. Or have acid reflux. I did for awhile and you get the same kind of stuff.
The way the doc explained it to me nerve endings are a little weird once your off the skin
Could also be acid reflux. Acid reflux / and Costochondritis both affect the left side of the chest and might feel like heart inflammation. most likely it's one of these two
Kek, I got this exact same diagnosis a decade ago. I think I overstressed the muscles in my inner chest from lifting. Just take a few days to a week off lifting and be sure to stretch the area when you go back to the gym.
Nah this has been happening for like a year. It seems to be permanent? Could it be an stress response thing?
Not that guy, but I had it when I was in my late 20's (over 30 years ago now, damn...) It just takes time, took me over a year to be completely free of it. I just took ibuprofen 4 times a day and did what I had to do regardless of the discomfort once I found out it wasn't heart related.
Thanks, you're giving me hope. I got it after I got COVID. I think it was a combination of all the hard coughing and overexercising my chest (I was doing pushups every day but never any back exercises for several months) not to mention shitty sitting posture resting on my left elbow for hours at a time in front of the computer.
Now I use a backpod every day, stretch, plenty of dead hangs, and back exercises while laying off the chest muscles. Getting better slowly.
I got this too I thought it was my heart. lay a foam roller aligned up and down and lay on it facedown
Also use your fingers to massage out all the little muscles between each ride while "breathing into" that area. Deep breathes to stretch and massage a bit
>I got this too I thought it was my heart
yupp, docs thought it was GERD, fricked my shit up with pantoprazole, omeprazole (one of the brands gave me the worst headaches I ever had), gave me a robot tentacle stomach frick for 800 bucks (bill arrived 4 months later unexpectedly)
wasn't particularly impressed with the healthcare here
I’ve been working through something similar that’s not yet diagnosed: throat tightness, nausea, dizziness, uncomfortable heart feeling (but no heart murmurs and good blood tests), neck pain, etc. that they gave me Prilosec for but I’m not sure if it’s working. I often feel like I’m very hungover but I don’t drink alcohol at all. This has been going on for about a year with no conclusion in sight. CT scans, bloodwork, allergy tests, ear inspections, all negative. I’m starting to wonder whether it’ll ever be resolved.
I would strongly recommend not taking PPIs that shit fricks you up and you need to stay on it forever and when you come off the rebound is terrible. some people actually have LOW stomach acid causing the same symtoms.
ppis will lower your acid which causes nutrient absorption issues and allows bad bacteria and viruses that are normally killed by the acid to now make it farther
Thanks for the feedback. Right now I’m taking the Prilosec for 8 weeks then checking back in with the doctor, so it’s not yet “long term.” (I’m also not keep on long term side effects of PPIs like their correlation with dementia.) Basically trying to rule things out, including potential GERD, which I’m not convinced is the actual problem. I’m also being treated as a potential asthma case and trying out meds for that, though I’m honestly starting to wonder if all this is being caused by some physiological problem like a hernia or neck pain and instability, which I’ve had ongoing issues with. Shit is a real drag and I’m trying hard to stay positive.
I’d be interested in hearing more about it. Talking to people, all this stuff sounds more common than you would think, so other people would probably find it useful.
Funny thing is after I "fixed" my acid reflux and gerd I've had for 20 years, I am able to overeat and eat cheese and fatty foods and anything now. I have a lot of theories about why and what happened but I'm improving every day. Would have never thought this would happen at 30 years old when i had endoscopies done since I was 15 and bad aggressive vomiting gerd/anxiety since 14 years old that gave me a hiatal hernia
I had gastric / acid issues along with anxiety for like 10 years since I was 12 years old-16 it got really bad. around 20 it got so bad i lost all my social relationships and got dumped. turned my anxiety terrible and fell into depression lost like 30 lbs of muscle bad acne and all
For me it was a lot of things but check out my post here
>>
I am 30 now and finally fixed my hiatal hernia / gerd / anxiety in the last two months. Diaphragm strengthening dont eat hours before bed, aloe gel before bed, fresh pressed cabbage juice in the morning
I might make a thread on how I fixed my crippling spiral of acid reflux and anxiety if people are interested lmk
I have an acid reflux and possibly GERD right now from dirty bulking and abusing coffee, would like to hear what you did for that.
Its so hard to function without coffee ong.
I gave up drinking alcohol six months ago because of my potential GERD/mystery illness issues, but didn’t give up coffee. Weird to think caffeine is more addictive than booze, but that’s been the case for me. It’s just a little ray of sunshine in my otherwise humdrum life, so I haven’t kicked it. Everyone’s always gonna tell you to stop doing whatever it is you like doing until you’re just left with lukewarm water and sedentary anger and nothing else.
>lukewarm water and sedentary anger
Have you considered the reason your life feels like lukewarm water and sedentary anger after kicking caffeine is because you're going through withdrawals?
Tough it out for a few weeks. It gets better, I promise. Depending on an exogenous substance to have a decent mood is unnecessary.
I'll make a thread tomorrow. I also overate too much for a few years and went to sleep with a full stomach laying down, acid all night
PPIs are the worse fricking shit they prescribe. I had acid issues since 16 and they gave me those PPIS and it FRICKED ME UP. I got off and fixed it naturally
had this a year ago. went to a chiropractor (lol) and he solved it after one visit. perhaps theyre not all quacks
nah homie got an inflamed costco it's over
It could be non-Hodgetwins lymphoma.
Is that the shit that makes it super painful to your ribs to breathe in or move? I've had this twice, each time on a different side, one time it went away after 3 weeks, the other time after about a week. I can't imagine having this for a year, at the severe state of it I had like 7/10 pain just by breathing
I had this. Don’t work through it. Stretch ur pecs, work on strengthening ur upper back, back, and area between ur shoulder blades.
You might be over training chest as that’s what caused mine.. I was in HS 8 years ago and lifted pecs 5 exercises til failure twice a week and kept working through it resulting in 3 months of no lifting
Stop doing dips. I know, i loved dips too.
Stretching fixed it for me.
Oh so I make a chosto thread at least thrice in the past and get barely any attention, but you get looads of replies
But seriously I have it to around my centre 2-3rd intercostal, just have to do regular stretches, posture too I think helps at lot, doesn't gone away completely just have to stay on top of it.
I had gotten costochondritis in the past from doing the ring support hold in the past, OP. It only took a month to rehabilitate. I took out movements that aggravated it, and slowly added them back in at lower intensities after 2-3 weeks or so. Problem never returned. I used Overcoming Gravity and it's info on injuries to treat it correctly.
My own recommendation to you, though, is to find a good orthopedist/sports medicine doctor, and a good physical therapist so you can rehab it correctly. Especially if it's been so long. Best of look anon
NAC Kurkuma callogen regiment
I had that for over a year. Its like the other anon says because of overtraining. Especially close grip bench/pushup variations seem to cause this. Also 1 arm rows like crook rows contributed a lot
Go on YouTube and search up backpod.
The creator of it explains what the issue is and how to fix it. It worked for me.
Here is the backpod video. The reason for your sternum pain is a mechanically issue with your back.
Backpod works in solving it.
Also why the frick is captcha so hard to solve
Most costochondritis is NOT a mysterious inflammation which nobody knows anything about. I’m a New Zealand physiotherapist – we’d see it as a straightforward problem where the rib hinges at the back are jammed, so the ones at the front work harder to compensate, get irritated, then inflamed. If there’s also swelling then it’s called Tietze’s Syndrome.
This is explained in detail in my YouTube video ‘How To Fix (most) Costochondritis and Tietze’s Syndrome Chest Pain’. We got swamped with requests for more specific details of how you fix it – here they are.
Serious note first: chest pain could be heart, so definitely get yourself checked out by a doctor first. But more than half of chest pain isn’t the heart or anything else dire.
The ribs are designed to hinge at both ends (like a bucket handle) to let you breathe. If the hinges at the back are frozen, the ones around the front have to frantically work overtime. So they get irritated, then inflamed – and there’s your costochondritis.
You fix it by getting the rib cage movement back to normal, especially the costovertebral (CV) joints where the ribs hinge onto your spine. Here’s how we do that. You might not need all of the components I’m describing, but chronic cases probably will.
I got costochondritis from doing dips way too deep and ended up getting chest pains that hurt so bad I stopped working out for a few weeks but it never went away. Somehow I came across costochondritis which matched up to my symptoms and discovered the backpod.
Unfortunately the costochondritis hasn't permanently gone away (I also got a new mattress which is hard on my back and I suspect is contributing to the issue) but doing the backpod exercises every few days subsizes the issue for a while.
Hope that helps everyone!!
you don't have costochondritis
this is a diagnosis they give when they don't know what is happening. nobody ever actually has it.
in my case, it took 40 years to figure out that i have hereditary genetic pancreatitis.
you don't have chostochondritis. keep searching for the real cause.
>costochondritis
Peak reddit