CHEST PAIN UPON BREATHING
Posted on April 9, 2009, under General health.
Description and Possible Medical Problems
If you feel a pain in your chest that’s either located in one spot or spread out throughout your chest whenever you take a breath, I have two pieces of good news for you. The first is that it probably doesn’t involve your heart. The second is that this kind of chest pain is easy to treat.
As with any type of chest pain, you should note if you’ve recently been injured, had an infection of some kind, or experienced any change in the state of your health.
It’s possible that you may have fractured a rib or strained the muscles of the rib cage by lifting, pushing, or pulling a heavy object. The lining of one of your lungs may have become inflamed due to fluid in the lung; the pain in your chest may be sharp and occur at a rib or across the back part of the lung. If you’re under 50, this is usually due to a respiratory infection like pneumonia. In an older person who is frail, the cause can be due to heart failure, a malignant tumor, or liver or kidney failure.
Treatment
Your doctor will determine the exact cause and treatment based on your medical history and whether you’ve experienced any recent or past lung infection or trauma. She will also conduct a physical exam with a stethoscope and the “tapping” test on the chest that is known as percussion. She will also probably take a chest X ray or an X ray of the ribs.
As mentioned earlier, having a pain in your chest on breathing is easy to treat. In most cases, all you need is time—about two weeks—and an analgesic such as Advil, Tylenol, or Naprosyn to relieve the pain. If, however, the pain is caused by fluid in the lung, the fluid will need to be removed with a small needle in a hospital. Your doctor will send the fluid to a lab for testing and will perform a complete medical work-up to determine the underlying cause of the chest pain.
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