Pain in left rib cage

There are many possible reasons for the pain in the left chest ribs. It may be caused by heart problems or pleurisy. Pleurisy is a relatively common disease, usually caused by infection. The basic symptoms are chest tightness, chest pain and pleural effusion. In severe cases, fever and other symptoms may also occur. Pleurisy needs timely diagnosis and treatment. Now let’s talk about the specific content of pleurisy.

Patients with pleurisy may have the following symptoms. In fact, the symptoms of pleurisy are also commonly seen, but we don’t know that these symptoms are caused by pleurisy, such as chest pain, chest tightness, and sometimes difficulty breathing. When infectious pleurisy or pleural effusion is secondary to infection, there may be chills and fever. When the disease is mild, there may be no symptoms. Pleurisy caused by different etiologies may be accompanied by clinical manifestations of the corresponding diseases.

1. Chest pain symptoms often occur below the anterior or posterior axillary line where the chest cavity has the largest respiratory movement range. The pain is sharp and worsens with deeper breathing or coughing. 2. When the amount of fluid in the pleural cavity increases, the chest pain symptoms may gradually ease, and may even disappear after a few days. 3. The stimulation of pleural effusion on the pleura can cause the patient to have a reflex dry cough, which is particularly obvious when the body position is turned. 4. When the amount of effusion is small, pleurisy patients only have symptoms of chest tightness and shortness of breath; but when a large amount of effusion compresses the lungs, heart and mediastinum, it can cause difficulty breathing. The faster and more fluid is produced and accumulated, the more obvious the breathing difficulties will be, and there may even be symptoms of orthopnea and cyanosis.

5. For patients with small amount of fluid or interlobar pleural effusion, the symptoms are not obvious or pleural friction sound can be heard in the early stage. 6. For those with moderate or more effusion, the chest of the affected side is slightly convex, the intercostal space is full, and respiratory movement is limited; the trachea, mediastinum and heart are shifted to the healthy side; the vocal tremor of the affected side is weakened or disappears, and percussion is dull or solid. 7. In patients with pleural adhesions and pleural thickening, the affected side of the chest may sink, the intercostal space may narrow, respiratory movements may be restricted, voice tremor may increase, percussion may produce dullness, and breath sounds may weaken. 8. The symptoms of nuclear pleurisy mainly include systemic poisoning symptoms of tuberculosis and local symptoms caused by pleural effusion. Among them, the symptoms of tuberculosis poisoning include chills, fever, sweating, night sweats, fatigue, loss of appetite, etc.; local symptoms include chest pain, dry cough, and difficulty breathing, etc.

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