Diagnosed With Costochondritis. Getting Severe Body Pain When Breathing Deeply Or Moving. Thoughts?

Posted on Tue, 23 Apr 2013

Medically reviewed by Ask A Doctor - 24x7 Medical Review Team

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 Answered on

Thu, 16 May 2013 Last reviewed on

Question : Hi, I was diagnosed with Costco about 8 months ago. I was bed ridden for 3 months. It subsided occasionally for a few weeks and comes back. I just started another flare up this morning and no pain killers help. My biggest issues is that when I move, talk, adjust,and breathe deep i get severe spasms where I can not control my body and the pain is so excruciating I often vomit and can't control my body for a few minutes. I've seen so many doctors and no one can help me. What would your opinion be?

Answered by Dr. Rohan Khandelwal (50 minutes later)

Dear Ma'am,

Sorry to hear about your problem. Costochondritis can be really debilitating at times and oral pain killers usually don't work at that time. The best treatment is to get local injections of pain killers. You can even try local steroid injections as they are known to have long term action.
Fortunately this condition subsides on its own in a few months to a year.

Hope you get well soon. Please feel free to clarify any other query.

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar