Terrified - Costochondritis or.....?? Help

[megant19]

Hi -

I am a 33 year old female former smoker. I have been having chest pains on either side of my sternum for several weeks. The pain is worse when I move my shoulders forward, or "flex" that area of my chest. Doesn't hurt to breathe, and it is somewhat sore to the touch. I have been seeing a chiropractor who has diagnosed me with costochondritis. He took spinal and side view x-rays. I suffer from very bad health anxiety. I am so afraid that I am being misdiagnosed and that I have lung cancer. I have expressed my concerns and my chiro says that he will be glad to refer me for diagnostic testing however my symptoms do not warrant that and they are presenting completely as classic costochondritis. Anyone out there suffer from this and can ease my mind a bit? I'm sure the massive amount of stressing I am doing over this is not helping the situation. I feel like I'm losing it. Thanks in advance.

[megant19]

Anyone out there?

[almamatters]

Hi I don't suffer from costochondritis but I do get random chest and arm pain which I get very anxious about, I would definitely be reassured if you have had a diagnoses from a professional and also clear x -rays. You mention lung cancer but anything sinister would have shown up on the x - rays. Please try not to worry too much , your chiro has said that your symptoms do not warrant further testing, which to me sounds very reassuring. x

[megant19]

Thank you. It's just that he only took xrays of my back and of me in a side view. I know he could see some of my lungs but he even said it's not the same as doing a front view where you see the whole lung field, this way you only see most of it. He really didn't want to feed into this, he said that a chest xray was not needed, my lungs sounded clear, all bloodwork was normal with my GP, and the symptoms did not indicate anything other than a musculoskeletal issue. It's just that nagging thing that this stupid anxiety does, the - well, he didn't check the actual front chest view so what if that's where it would show up.

I don't know - I have a friend who is a nurse and she said she sees tons of people with lung cancer, and they are all coughing up stuff constantly, losing tons of weight and extremely short of breath all the time. I don't have any of those symptoms so I just want to go on and get this out of my head. I just wish it were that easy. I'm afraid it's going to keep eating at me until I break down and find another Dr. that will do a chest xray. I don't want to go there. Ugh.

[purgatory]

Hi,

I have suffered from Costochondritis now for 4 years and by the sounds of it your doctor has done a good job in checking you over.
The way that that Costo is diagnosed is to rule out certain things like heart problems and so on and your doctor has done that so it does point to Costochondritis.

The sad thing is with Costo it does not show up on any x-ray or anything like that it is a strange complaint but with a little rest and care it will normal clear up.

A little tip for you is sleep with a pillow hugged to your chest it will help.