Pulmonary Embolism Support Group

By far the most common form of pulmonary embolism is a thromboembolism, which occurs when a blood clot, generally a venous thrombus, becomes dislodged from its site of formation and embolizes to the arterial blood supply of one of the lungs. Symptoms may include difficulty breathing, pain during breathing, and more rarely circulatory instability and death.

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Description of Chest Pain

rytheguy71
rytheguy71
On Monday, I had a chest pain that was pretty sharp and I was wondering for everyone that has had chest pain, what does yours feel like? For me, it is feels like when I breathe in, that my lung is kind of catching on my rib. It only happens for a few seconds then goes away. Before I was diagnosed with saddle, bilateral PE and DVT in February, I had this same type of pain that was not quite as sharp, and only occurred when I was laying flat on my back, or sitting at certain angles. It felt better when I laid on my stomach. At the time, I chalked it up to having been lifting some heavy stuff over my head (I have always had some issues with my left shoulder ever since I played football in college), and thought that maybe the rotator cuff was flaring up and pinching a nerve. It went away after a day and a half. I told my doctors about this event after I was admitted to the hospital, and they felt like this could have been attributed to the PE

Has anyone experienced this sort of pain?
rmb
rmb
My PE was over 6 years ago and I still once in a while I still get pain. It's usually a stabbing pain in my upper right back when I take a breath so it's not my chest but definitely related to breathing.
rytheguy71
rytheguy71
Mine is left side, and I would also describe it as a stabbing type pain, When I kind of stretch my chest it goes away...it seems to be more to the front than the back.
rmb
rmb
It usually is more prevalent when I have allergies or have an upper respiratory thing going on. Shortly after I had my PE, I had chest and back pain on and off for a few months. Some of it was just from over doing it, some of it may have been healing. Who knows. At this point I've gotten used to it so I don't really give it much thought. But yeah, after my diagnosis, it was kind of scarey for a bit until I saw that others here experienced it as well.
deleted_user
deleted_user
but the thing that pisses me off is WHY. Why 6 years out, when you should be well healed, do you still get pains?! Or was there permanent damage to your lung? I feel as though you dont deserve to have/still shouldnt get those pains.

And ry, I feel you, I get constant chest tightness and poking feelings in my sides. My hema and GP doc both have told me that I have to just wait it out really... bs.
rmb
rmb
I am healed. I feel great. I don't know the exact reason why I still have occasional pain, but seriously, it doesn't affect my life or what I like to do. I think it's important to not get too worked up about pain and discomfort because that just intensifies things.
rytheguy71
rytheguy71
I know the tightness and especially the stabbing pain are annoying. For me, the stabbing pain normally happens in the morning when I am getting dressed to go to work. I also want to add that I have axtually had this same stabbing type pain at random for many years prior to this, but it seems to occur more fequently now. It almost feels like my lung has become pinched on one of my ribs when I breathe in.. I stretch my chest and kind of arch my back and in a few seconds it goes away.
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