strange feeling in chest/stomach!!! - Open to All Other Health Topics Message Board

hayley0610 · 12-22-2004, 10:40 PM

hope i can describe whats happening to me so people understand. ive had a sore rib cage on my left side for yrs now but never sought medical attn for it cause i figured its just me. anyways i started getting back spasms this wkend really bad so i went to my doc and he told me i had mild scoliosis and my spine is slightly curved to the left causing this rib uncomfortableness. well ive notived something else the last day or so and i hope this will come out right!! if anyones ever been pregnant and the way their ribs and upper chest feels when they start getting big and it "cuts" into their ribs and causes a pressure feeling on their ribs and very top of thier tummy, thats kind of what its like! i feel like ive swollowed a basketball like the only way i feel comfortable is to extend my stomach as far as i can just to feel relief like ive eaten too much!its not gas but a feeling like my skin cant take the size of my stomach! when i lay down on my side i feel like i want to put a pillow under my stomach so i can rest it like its too heavy but this feeling is all day....i should end this with i am a bit overweight about 20-30 lbs im 33 mom of 4 i slouch really bad and have terrible posture and i sit at work all day long too.

hallmatt · 01-17-2005, 12:28 PM

I've had a similar experience. Was very bloated a year ago. They ran tests. Blood was OK. Upper GI was OK. Abdominal U/S was OK. HIDA with CCK was failed miserably. Ding ding, gallbladder. Well, at least that had to go to eliminate it as a possibility. For about 10 months as I recovered, everything was good. Then the weather got cold during the fall (maybe related, no idea) and it came back after an unusually spicy Thai lunch. Dr said it was IBS and I should pre-emptively strike with a Tums if I know I'm going to eat Thai. Ok, but it didn't really go away until I started taking Metamucil pills and a daily vitamin (trying for more magnesium for absorption).

Even now it's not gone. It gets better/worse throughout the day. Never painful. Just feel like something is pushing on my lower left lowest rib from the inside. I am, of course, a little unnerved about it and that doesn't help make it go away. It sometimes travels to be the same type of feeling, but diminished, under the right lowest rib. Then it usually comes back to the left pretty quickly.

Mine really sounds like gas but who knows. No symptoms that would really indicate anything but IBS, but it doesn't help to read that the ex-CEO of McDonald's died of colon cancer at 44.. when I've always eaten my share of fast food.