How is costochondritis diagnosed and treated?

Costochondritis is also a common disease in life. The main surface of costochondritis is relatively obvious. Patients will obviously feel intense pain in the chest and have difficulty breathing. Sometimes they will feel restricted in movement when raising their arms.

What are the diagnostic contents?

What we usually call "costochondritis" includes Tietze syndrome and non-suppurative costochondritis. The manifestations of these two diseases are quite similar, and the specific relationship is not very clear, so in clinical practice they are often collectively referred to as costochondritis.

1. Costochondritis is mainly manifested by pain in the anterior chest. There is often a history of upper respiratory tract infection before the pain occurs, and it occurs after severe coughing, or there has been experience of heavy physical labor before. Therefore, the pain of costochondritis is mainly caused by damage to the chest wall cartilage or joints. The pain will worsen when raising the arms and coughing hard, so try to avoid it. Sometimes a lump can be felt at the painful area, and generally there is no other discomfort except the pain.

2. Costochondritis can improve on its own without treatment. The pain may occur intermittently and last from a few weeks to several months. If the pain is severe, you can use painkillers, but many painkillers are irritating to the digestive tract, so patients with stomach problems should try to reduce the use of medication, or take it after meals. You can also use anesthetics to block the painful area.

3. The diagnosis of costochondritis must be based on the exclusion of other diseases . For example, women need to exclude breast disease, the elderly need to exclude heart disease, esophageal disease, lung disease, as well as suppurative costochondritis, chest wall tumors, etc. Therefore, do not easily diagnose costochondritis with chest pain. You should go to the hospital for examination to avoid delaying the treatment of the disease.

Symptomatic treatment, such as local lidocaine plus hydrocortisone blockade and periosteum puncture to relieve tension at the swollen costal cartilage, may have a certain effect. It generally does not respond well to physical therapy and antibiotics. If long-term use of various treatments is ineffective, and the symptoms are severe or the possibility of a tumor cannot be ruled out, the costal cartilage can be removed. Traditional Chinese medicine believes that if the liver qi is stagnant, the qi flow will not flow smoothly, and if the qi is stagnant, the blood will stagnate, and the meridians will be blocked, so the chest and flanks will swell and bulge. Selected authentic medicinal materials are carefully matched and formulated to soothe the liver and relieve depression, promote blood circulation and remove blood stasis, reduce swelling and disperse nodules. It can improve the nutrition of tissues around the affected area and further repair the damaged costal cartilage, thereby eliminating the symptoms of swelling caused by costochondritis.