So, anyone remember when I offhandedly mentioned in this post the abdominal CT scan I had in early 2005 to diagnose a sharp pain in my left side when I breathed deeply? No
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These pains... how long do they last? Do they increase when you breath in deeply?
I had periodic pains like these over the years, and they were diagnosed as bubbles in the pleural lining of the lungs. Tiny tears can appear in the lining, gases seep in, and occasionally coalesce into macro bubbles. They hurt like a MOFO, feel like you're being stabbed with something sharp. Breathing in or out makes it worse, because that bubble is acting like a friction point between the smooth pleural tissues that are supposed to slide over each other when the lungs expand or contract. It's like throwing a pebble into rollers. Mine usually occur below the heart and to the left (kinda where yours are, it sounds like) or bottom right. Sometime top right.
Solution? Really isn't one. They come, they go, they hurt like hell. The only thing I've found to do is to either breathe very shallow, until it dissipates (can take hours) or... and this is going to sound nuts... hit it. Tighten up your chest and torso muscles and fricking *pound* it with your fist, then inhale very deeply a few times. I figured that if it was a bubble, this might break up and distribute it, and it seems to work. Hurts, but not as much as the actual bubble itself.
I used to get them a few times a week as a teenager going through growth spurts, now I get them a couple times a year.
In the large sense the last time I had it in 2005 it lasted about a week, week and a half. This time it started to subside last night and there's very little pain now, so that's about two days so far.
It really only hurts on inhale and only if I inhale past a certain point, as it were. Like I can inhale a certain amount without pain and then it's like being stabbed. The odd thing is if I continue to inhale past a certain point the pain will stop. :/ So it can't just be something pressing on something else, or it would just get worse after a certain point.
I used to get a lot of random sharp pain over my heart as a teenager too, but they never lasted long. I guess the bubble theory makes sense; a cousin of mine had some lung troubles, one of his actually collapsed for no discernable reason (diagnosis: a weak spot), so it wouldn't suprise me if lung issues are in my family. How did you get diagnosed?
My Dad has the same issue when he was a teenager, and he was diagnosed with it - the docs who looked at me were baffled until I mentioned that, and then they all went "Ohhhhhhhh... yeah, that makes sense." :P
Apparently it's common, but not commonly diagnosed correctly. Since there's no billable treatment for it... :P
There's a collapsed lung syndrome that goes along with being male, white, tall, and thin, actually. Something about the phenotype, perhaps a mild form of Marfan's Syndrome, where connective tissue is lacking throughout the body.
Lemme guess - when you inhale past that point, you can't then easily *exhale* back down past it either. Kinda get stuck on either side of it?
I had periodic pains like these over the years, and they were diagnosed as bubbles in the pleural lining of the lungs. Tiny tears can appear in the lining, gases seep in, and occasionally coalesce into macro bubbles. They hurt like a MOFO, feel like you're being stabbed with something sharp. Breathing in or out makes it worse, because that bubble is acting like a friction point between the smooth pleural tissues that are supposed to slide over each other when the lungs expand or contract. It's like throwing a pebble into rollers. Mine usually occur below the heart and to the left (kinda where yours are, it sounds like) or bottom right. Sometime top right.
Solution? Really isn't one. They come, they go, they hurt like hell. The only thing I've found to do is to either breathe very shallow, until it dissipates (can take hours) or... and this is going to sound nuts... hit it. Tighten up your chest and torso muscles and fricking *pound* it with your fist, then inhale very deeply a few times. I figured that if it was a bubble, this might break up and distribute it, and it seems to work. Hurts, but not as much as the actual bubble itself.
I used to get them a few times a week as a teenager going through growth spurts, now I get them a couple times a year.
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It really only hurts on inhale and only if I inhale past a certain point, as it were. Like I can inhale a certain amount without pain and then it's like being stabbed. The odd thing is if I continue to inhale past a certain point the pain will stop. :/ So it can't just be something pressing on something else, or it would just get worse after a certain point.
I used to get a lot of random sharp pain over my heart as a teenager too, but they never lasted long. I guess the bubble theory makes sense; a cousin of mine had some lung troubles, one of his actually collapsed for no discernable reason (diagnosis: a weak spot), so it wouldn't suprise me if lung issues are in my family. How did you get diagnosed?
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Apparently it's common, but not commonly diagnosed correctly. Since there's no billable treatment for it... :P
There's a collapsed lung syndrome that goes along with being male, white, tall, and thin, actually. Something about the phenotype, perhaps a mild form of Marfan's Syndrome, where connective tissue is lacking throughout the body.
Lemme guess - when you inhale past that point, you can't then easily *exhale* back down past it either. Kinda get stuck on either side of it?
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Dammit, all my ailments are supposed to be treatable. :p
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