Tuesday, June 12, 2007

I'm not a hypochondriac! Yea!!

For the last few months I have been experiencing what I like to call "pressure" on the left side of my chest. I was not overly concerned at first because I feel like I'm always finding something wrong with myself medically. But... this morning I woke up and I had the pain in my chest. I usually don't wake up with it, so that was a little weird, then this afternoon my left arm started to hurt and I began to freak out just a little. I called Mike and he came by the house and picked me up and off to Kaiser we went again. Now, I must preface all this with the fact that I believe that I'm a pretty healthy person (other than my sprains and breaks). I run (I will begin again soon, when my ankle is healed) and I make sure that we eat pretty healthy at home, I don't smoke, drink and I don't even have caffeine that often.
Now getting back to my chest pain. We arrived at Kaiser and I must say that they get you in to urgent care very quickly when you tell them that you have pain in your chest. I had a very nice nurse and then the doctor came in. He asked me a few questions and then he listened to my breathing and heart. Then he preceded to put pressure on my different parts of my chest. When he touched the left side it hurt a bit and then he moved away, looked at me with no doubt in his mind and told me I have something called Costochondritis. This has nothing to do with my heart and basically means I did something to strain my rib cage and and that the cartilage between my rib cage and breastbone is inflamed. His prescription: 2 Advil three times a day for 12 days. I just kept thanking him and saying I'm glad it's not my heart! I'm also glad that I finally went to the doctor and I'm especially glad that this makes me feel like I'm not a hypochondriac.