What Causes Burning Pain In Chest And Back Area?

Posted on Mon, 17 Aug 2015

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

Mon, 17 Aug 2015 Answered on

Wed, 2 Sep 2015 Last reviewed on

Question : I'm having a burning pain in my chest and back area at the bottom of my rib cage. It rates about a 5 on the pain chart. I've had it for awhile. It gets worse at night. The pain is mainly on the right side and but I feel shoots of pain to the left side. I had breast cancer 10 years ago with a bilateral mastectomy and reconstruction. The abdominal pain has been there for a couple of weeks but the back pain started suddenly last week but won't go away. I do have a history of MS but it's in remission. Not a bad case. I do have problems with alternating diarrhea/constipation that I can manage. I also have a high amount of blood in my urine that seems to be hereditary and I don't do anything for it. I'm concerned about cancer. I was Stage I but it was aggressive. Thank you for your help.

Answered by Dr. Monish De (24 minutes later)

Brief Answer:
Bone Scan and CT chest with upper abdomen

Detailed Answer:
Hi

Since you are having history of breast cancer and is having back pain and burning pain in chest i would advise you to do a Bone Scan and CT chest including upper abdomen

Breast cancer has the tendency to spread to liver, lungs and bones and that is why you must do the scans to rule out recurrence of breast cancer

For pain you can take paracetamol 650 mg tablets twice daily after food with your doctors advise

Regards

DR DE

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Neel Kudchadkar