CHEST PAIN
What causes chest pain? Not all chest pain comes from your heart or from your lungs. Sometimes it comes from your rib cage. How can you tell which is which? If the pain is coming from your heart, most of the time you will feel it in the center of your chest, like a squeezing or pressing sensation and the pain will radiate down your left arm into your hand or into your chin. You may feel sweaty. If this occurs, go to the emergency department right away! If a similar chest pain occurs when you are exercising and stops quickly when you rest, then it may be angina and you should consult your doctor about it. If, on the other hand, the pain is in one specific spot and is made worse when you press on it, the chances are it is not coming from your heart or from your lungs. One of the commonest causes of superficial chest pain is costochondritis. This is pain where the ribs meet the cartilage that stands between them and the sternum, the breastbone. Every time you breathe in and out, this junction between the ribs and the cartilage opens and closes a bit. If the ligaments between the rib and the cartilage weaken, then there can be some slippage of the rib away from the cartilage, and stretching of the ligaments that join the two together. This will cause pain.
On the back of the chest, each rib attaches on its corresponding vertebra. The first rib attaches on the first thoracic vertebra, and the 12th rib on the 12th thoracic vertebra. These attachments of the ribs against the vertebrae are called costo vertebral articulations. Generally as the result of some kind of trauma, a rib may separate from its vertebra. When this happens the ligaments that hold the rib and the vertebra together will be overstretched and cause pain in your back.
Can prolotherapy help these unstable joints? Prolotherapy is a series of injections of growth promoting substances in ligaments and tendons around the joint. It has been shown to thicken and strengthen the ligaments and tendons which are injected. Because prolotherapy can help rebuild and strengthen the ligaments which surround and stabilize joints, it is very helpful in helping the body repair the unstable junction between the ribs and the cartilage or between the ribs and the vertebrae. It is the only procedure which can do so.
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