What Causes Pain In Left Side Under Ribs And Back?

Posted on Thu, 17 Jul 2014

Question: pain on left side, under bottom of ribs, front and back, worse with deep breath
some tenderness to touch higher on same side
serious rotator cuff problems left arm

Answered by Dr. Dr. Praveen Tayal (41 minutes later)

Brief Answer:
inflammation of costochondral joints.

Detailed Answer:
Hello,
Thanks for posting your query.
The pain you have can be due to inflammation of costochondral joints. There are some autoimmune disorders which need to be ruled out for their association like- fibromyalgia, psoriatic arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis reactive arthritis, and inflammatory bowel disease (such as ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease).
I hope you are not having any problems related to any other joint pains and bowel movements.
Pain killers, antiinflammatory drugs- steroids and lidocaine patch are the main treatments. You need discuss all options available with your orthopedician for proper treatment.
Meanwhile doing a hot compresses will be useful pain relieving measure. You may apply a local analgesic gel on that area.
I hope this answers your query.
In case you have additional questions or doubts, you can forward them to me, and I shall be glad to help you out.
Wishing you good health.
Regards.
Dr. Praveen Tayal.
For future query, you can directly approach me through my profile URL http://bit.ly/Dr-Praveen-Tayal

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