Pain in the region of the heart

Question

Dear expert team,
for one month now, I have very strong, cramping pain in the region of the heart, so that I am not able to breathe really deeply anymore.
A check at the cardiologist did not show any conspicuities. The CF-center is of the opinion that it has to come from the lung.
What can I do against it, in order to get rid of the pain?
Many thanks in advance

Answer

Hello,
typically the lung does not "hurt" itself but rather the pleura or the ribs, the toracical wall, the nerves or muscles between the ribs etc. In order to find that out - and to find relieve - one has to investigate again very detailed, sometimes one finds after some days suddenly vesicles on the skin and than the whole thing was the beginning of a shingles - I do not write this because I think that I can judge this from here, but it makes sense, to relook at it after a few days - perhaps one could make an ultrasound or see, if probably a rib has become a crack during the cough - which can be very painful.
Pain in that region - ribs and pleura - do often not react sufficiently to the "normal" pain drugs, here one has to get a drug prescribed by the CF-physician - sometimes one has to prescribe a combination with Codein or a "rheumatic drug" such as diclofenac helps better. This are of course things, that you should clarify with your CF-center, as with pain we should not leave you alone for sure.
Yours sincerely,
Prof. Dr. TOF Wagner

05.11.2009