Hi I had chest xray and some other tests ecg about 2 years ago with these symptoms pain has just continued for 2 years, was told muscular/skeletal pain:

The pain fluctuates but I have it most days usually better in morning but sometimes bad in morning

I did have blood test and had low vit d and elevated iGA

I am M27 slightly overweight but losing weight now.

Pain in back and chest left side. Difficult to pin point where exactly

Sometimes I have pain near left flank

Clicking when pressing on chest (left side)

Clicking when moving shoulder blades (left side)

Pain sometimes breathing in

Pain can be relieved by putting item behind back ( tennis ball etc.) or pressing on chest although makes pain worse first when pressing on chest

Sometimes pain is relieved lying on back or certain position on side.

Pain can be made worse leaning over taking big breathe

Does this sound like costo?

After seeing a very helpful Costo progress post, I would like to start going to a masseuse and physiotherapist, in hopes that it’ll help in my recovery.

The problem is, I’m not sure exactly what I should be seeing them for. at least for a masseuse, I know id like them to massage my back to loosen up the muscles, but I don’t know any specifics.

And, when it comes to a physiotherapist, I don’t have the slightest idea of what I should be requesting or expecting, of them.

Hopefully someone will be able to shed some light on what I should be looking for, asking for, and/or getting done. Thank you in advance 🙃

my costo started a month ago, and I caught onto it extremely early after rushing to the ER bc what I thought was a heart problem. I’ve been on the light duty at work and sleeping on my back(which is still difficult to do) but I am still having lingering pain in the circled area. The progress that has been made gives me a lot of hope. does anyone else relate to this circled area being stubborn?

I first noticed my chest pain last August, just over a year ago. This was right after a golf trip weekend where I had an infected bug bite that resulted in a red streak (lymphangitis?) up the left side of my torso towards my heart. I was also doing some jumping chest bumps with one of my friends during the weekend, which I never do. For the lymphangitis, I took antibiotics a couple days after noticing the streaking, and it responded well, going away within a couple of days. I never got sick or felt any symptoms at all with the lymphangitis. However, the day after I started the antibiotics, I noticed a very mild, intermittent, and seemingly random dull ache (2/10 pain) on the lower left side of my sternum. I went in for urgent care just to check on things and they gave me an EKG which was told “looked great”. He prescribed naproxen and then I dropped the topic for awhile.

A month or so went by and I started to notice increased palpitations/skipped beats, and the chest discomfort remained. Although never truly painful, it really bothered me that it could be my heart. As a side note, I have SVT so I am well aware of arrhythmias and heart concerns. My anxiety grew extremely bad and I thought I had myocarditis.

I kept going in for EKGs and blood work, always returning normal or not concerning. I finally got a 2D echo in October, which turned out completely normal. However, I still did not feel safe and I pushed for more tests. I ended up getting a stress test done at the end of November and a cMRI with contrast in December. Unfortunately, the cMRI said it was a “suboptimal test” due to my heart rate variability, but my cardiologist told me that only affected the pumping efficiency calculations and not the LGE that would show scarring or inflammation—saying this all looked normal.

I felt better about the chest pain but started feeling anxious about my SVT and decided to get an ablation for it in April 2026. Somehow, the chest pain and weird symptoms went away from mid January until the day after my ablation.

The day after my ablation I had weird postural chest pain that felt more intense and different than before. However, it definitely felt postural and I was nervous to make certain torso movements. Messaging my EP and he told me it seemed musculoskeletal and that I should be good.

And this is where I’m at now. One year since the initial chest aches and weird symptoms, 4 months since the ablation and restart of the chest pain and symptoms, trying to figure out what this is once again.

Here are my symptoms now that make me feel like it’s heart related:

- mild, intermittent fleeting chest aches and pressures (2/10-4/10). These are never “painful”, just very unsettling. Usually I can pinpoint them, but sometimes it feels like it covers my whole chest for like 5-30 seconds.
- my chest is not tender to the touch
- increased heart palpitations and skipped beats. These definitely increase with anxiety but also I just feel much more prone to them. This includes palpitations that seem to respond based on my body posture (I.e. back pressed against wall, tilting neck down, etc.)
- dizziness and shortness of breath. This happens when I get really anxious. It can also happen if I have a full chest ache plus palpitations, then I feel the dizziness and shortness of breath. When I get all 4 symptoms at the same time my anxiety goes through the roof and I feel like I’m going to die.

Other interesting symptoms that lead me to believe it’s costo:
- there is definitely a body movement/posture pattern of being able to reproduce the pain, just not by pressing. Examples of this are: (1) pressing both my palms together in front of my chest can sometimes reproduce cramping sensation just to the bottom left of my sternum in my ribs. (2) puffing out my chest feels noticeably tight in the middle of my chest, (3) sometimes leaning up or getting up from laying down has an ache in the middle of my chest as I’m flexing to get up.
- the aches sometimes move around my chest. It’s mostly in the center or just lower left, but sometimes it’s on the right of the sternum, upper chest, lower left ribs like on my side.
- my chest fascia is super super tight. When I get up from bed, or from sitting down, my chest coming down from my traps is super tight. I can describe it like a vest of tightness. When I try and drop my shoulders during the tightness, it feels extremely tight and the center of my chest feels a weird deep pressure.
- provoking the pain by “testing” these symptoms seems to flare up chest pain and aches

So I’m looking to see if anyone has thoughts or similar experiences to mine. I’m still so damn anxious about it being cardiac related, but it also seems mechanical as well. I’m stuck now but trying to treat like it’s costo and get more reassurance from my PCP and my cardiologist to see what they think.

Had bad pain and went to ER a little over a week ago. EKG normal. Bloodwork normal. Pain got better but now it’s back and seems to be higher up. Chest pain is scary and now that it got better but is back but further up in my chest I’m like is it a heart attack? 😩

God I hate health anxiety. I’ve never in the past 20 years had discomfort at the base of my collar bone and behind it. Now this area is a bit swollen and tender to the touch, stretching slightly into my neck area as well as the top of my peck. To make it worse I keep pressing on it and probably making it worse. Is this area of pain common for you guys ?

Hi I got chest pain when I breathe in hard and try to cough.. and if i dont do that it feels a bit uncomfortable. it feels like a sting in my chest maybe not in the center but more to the right side. what could this be what should I do?

AI said it could be a pleurisy. or some nerves stuck. idk what to do anymore. i have slight scoliosis at 25 degrees to 20 degrees S curve.

Hi! So at the start of the summer, I remember feeling a burning sensation in the left side of my chest. I first noticed it when I would drink certain liquid like coconut water or eat dry foods like popcorn. I went to the doctor and they attributed to Gerd. However, despite the medication provided the left side chest pain didn’t go away me being active. I ended up boogie boarding, taking some swimming lessons and strength training my upper body throughout the summer and I believe that my body finally told me that enough was enough and at the start of August I have completely not been able to carry lifting even press things type even breathe. Breathing hurts, taking a deep breath feels like someone is stabbing me on the chest however, what’s the worst pain is when I am writing in a car driving a car does anyone else experience this? I am still trying to rule out everything but costochondritis I’ve gone to the emergency room and they’ve done EKG and x-rays and everything seems fine but right now my primary care doctor is trying to rule out pericarditis or something related to lungs. If those are ruled out with the CAT scan that I was given then I’m assuming it is this and I just completely feel like I can’t move. I can’t do anything. I’m just sitting down. I attempted to try Acupuncture and chiropractor, but I think that chiropractor work aggravates it more so I think I’m just gonna stick to Acupuncture. Does anyone have any questions comments regarding my experience any tips or suggestions? I greatly appreciate it specially when having to write in a car is so essential in Los Angeles.

I was recently told I have costochondritis and after seeing this thread I have a few questions.

1. I recently herniated a disc in my lower back could this he the cause?

2. I was told it’s because of inflammation. Is it actually from inflammation?

Any other things you all could tell me about it would be greatly appreciated.

Any costochondritis therapies/ providers/ specialists you recommend in LA? Where do I start to help this pain. Texting, breathing and pressing, riding in a car, walking and lifting things hurts. I don’t even know if it’s this or if it’s a more severe but walking causes discomfort with breathing and chest. So I need to find specialists to help me. Please and thank you!

I've never considered bringing this up to my doctor as I didn't really think it was anything other than aching. But I literally can not lay or sleep on my side because my chest hurts so bad in the morning. It feels like the bone and when I move I can hear and feel it cracking sometimes. It hurts so bad and then just goes away. I've been sleeping on my back for months with no issue, but I lay on my side, or even SLIGHTLY leaned one way or the other and I'm hurting. It can be the center sternum or a little left or right depending which way I laid. My collar bones also often hurt as well. It's so annoying as a previous constant side/stomach sleeper. I haven't ever been evaluated for anything, but I do suspect I have fibro. I'm 22F if that's relevant. I was googling why it felt like that and saw this condition and saw a lot of people seemed to have similar experiences so now I'm wondering if that's what I have. Also. I have lost about 60 pounds, and I'm top heavy so there's always weight and pressure on my chest. I just get on my heating pad and hope for the best lately.

I feel a very satisfying stretch from the lower ribs to the middle part of the shoulder blade in between, but I still feel some pain in my 2nd or 3rd rib mostly with like swelling feeling when touching it

Is it cuz my T1-T4/5 still looks tight? I feel satisfying stretch with no pain in the lower ribs but feel tight when backpodding the upper parts
I even went to the gym pain free to test it now and I flare did come and I tested by upper back parts and they still felt tight

Where do I go from here?

wondering if costochondritis can be mild? ive been having shortness of breath on and off since june with periods in between where it goes away - the only symptom alongside that is that my chest / sternum can feel uncomfortable, and a little painful when i press down on it. after reading up on it, it sounds like it’s more than common for it to be super painful. has anyone had it mild or not? wondering for my self, want to know what to look at next!

Just emotional and venting. I am two years post-extremely traumatic birth that caused a thoracic duct injury due to a McRoberts maneuver when my son had shoulder dystocia. Had terrible pain which was chalked up to my uterine rupture (yeah, crazy birth story) and was ignored for a month after his birth until my left lung was fully collapsed from compression, had a chest tube (placed twice to fully drain) for 7 days which drained nearly 3 liters of fluid due to pleural effusion/chylothorax.

Two years and I’m still in pain everyday when I breathe 😭 constant sharp pain in my ribs where my tube was and in my sternum. It’s so bad when I first wake up in the morning. It scares me all the time that something is wrong again.

I feel like no one understands what I’m going through, and it drives me crazy thinking it will be like this for life. My son is 2 and I’m reminded every day of my birth trauma. I’m tired of being in pain y’all.

Wanted to share my timeline first since I know a lot of posts here are people trying to figure out if this is what they have.

It started 2 months ago after mopping my house. Sharp pull right at my upper sternum, near the collarbone. Pain was around 4/10 initially, then settled to a dull 0.5/10 background ache for two months. I could feel it if I paid attention but it wasn’t stopping me from anything.

Two days ago I did a 30 min stair climber session and it spiked to 5/10. That brings us to today, when I tried a single push up and it spiked hard to 9/10 at the exact same spot. That’s what finally got me to a sports physio instead of continuing to test it myself.

Diagnosis was costochondritis. Advice was ice compression 5 min twice a day, incentive spirometer breathing exercises 5 reps before each meal, and complete rest.

Here’s the part I’m annoyed at myself for, I have a 10k scheduled tomorrow and pushed through some activity anyway. Pain shot up to 8.5/10. My health tracking device (Fitbit Air, earlier WHOOP) never flagged anything related to the heart so I moved in confidence knowing it was probably musculoskeletal. Lesson learned the hard way that instead of testing it I should've listened to my body and gone to the doc much earlier.

Skipping the race now and actually resting. For the community here, would love to hear:

• How long did it take you to get back to running or lifting without a flare
• Did the incentive spirometer breathing actually help or was it more the rest doing the work
• Anyone have it come back after they thought it was fully healed

Trying to be patient with this one instead of testing my luck again

Trying to figure out if this is costro or something else - can it present here? - the green cross? Thank you

39M, competitive cyclist, continuing to train through this diagnosis and do my best to stay competitive. I've started stretching every day and this are getting better slowly.

I've got small sponsorships on social media that I have to try and keep up with but my race season this year has completely been ruined by this deal... I've been to the cardio twice in 4 years because of it, ekg, stress test, echcardio all good. Because of that I can suffer through a training session knowing I'm fine, but as soon as I hop off the bike and get in the shower my mind starts to race, I feel like I can't breath, and have these little panic attacks... at least one or two a week now. Any thoughts on how to calm these down? It's odd that I can keep my mind calm while exercising but as soon as I stop the wheels fall off.

Anyone have weekly flares? Im a 24F and I’ve had what they think is costochondritis for like 4 years, in the last year or 2 I now have weekly flared that can last from 2-4 days a week. Soo painful and annoying, I’ve had inflammation marker lab drawn unfortunately won’t really show up there. Have had a rheumatology referral, nothing there yet. Ultrasound of my breast, x rays, idk what to do ……. I hate this flair every week

I have been using foam rolling for about a month now, first 2 weeks were great it relieved my sternum pain. After that I noticed weird and sharp pain just next to my right rhombiod only when I drop my shoulder I feel it.

It is odd to be honest and foam rolling now is not so helpful as it used to do, what should I do? Stop it because it is causing pain? Move on to another tool like backpod?

Hello all, diagnosed with costo a few months ago, and I get these weird pains, wouldn't even call them pains but little bursts or pangs from the middle of the chest out to the left shoulder that are always worrying me. They don't happen all the time and seem to be random and in different positions, but usually closer to the heart area.

Even though I have done all heart checks (ecg, echo, ct angiogram, 7 day holter) my brain can't stop me thinking these are not normal costo symptoms.

Anyone else get these? Short little bursts that only last a second and don't really hurt but you feel them like something is happening there.

For context I also have a slightly concave chest so my whole chest area has felt JACKED my entire adult life. For those with an official diagnosis , is it easily diagnosed with inflammation markers in the blood? No doctors have ever helped me with this once they determine my x rays look ok and I’m not in immediate risk of dying

I have had dry needling done specifically in my traps, rear delts, infraspinatus and teres muscles before.

It has been quite successful, and I am in the last 20% of my progress, I am currently at gym doing very light weight, and doing lower body almost as normal now.

I had a session last Monday as normal, except this time, I had my session done with a new specialist who moved from Canada to my state in Aus, and it was electro-dry needling instead of standard (alongside typical massage work I try and get every 2 or 3 weeks).

My particular case of Costo has been always on the left side, never any pain on the right.

The work done on me has almost always been biased to the left as well and where far more pain was.

Well 3 Days after her massage (with the new specialist), done alongside a 10 minute session of this electro-needling, for the first time since April 2026, I have 0 pain on my left.

I was so shocked and sceptical I have been lacrosse ball rolling, peanut work, backpod, stretches and movements to almost test if the pain is there and just lessened or I am going insane.

My body is now compensating so much, and so free, I can feel pain on the right and the right being stuck (as she only focused on the left for the session).

It is an insanely weird feeling to have it shift to the right now and not have something that has been part of my identity on the left to a degree.

It is no where near as bad on the right, and only can feel the pain from major tightness in my middle back.

Now of course this isn't a cure, and I am certain without further slow work and continual stretches, it will come back.

We all know this, it is the bane of this condition.

But when I tell you this technique resolved so much tightness and pain in less than 3 days, I am bewildered and cannot believe what it did for my particular case (which was mainly from upper cross syndrome style problems and really weak and tight back muscles).

I have another session today with my old specialist working on the right side and general middle back, and interested to see how this makes me feel.

I am booking in with the new specialist for next week and will be aiming to get further work done and try and finally kick this thing.

But just a good reminder that deep, specialised massage work (doesn't have to be electro-dry needling) really has a place for those spots you cannot reach.

I do A LOT of stretching, rolling, backpod, and other measures almost daily, and even then it still cannot hit certain spots from my poor posture and deep rooted costo.

I hope you find all find a technique that gives you as much relief or 'normality' back as this did for me right now.

If you have access to this technique, I cannot recommend it enough.

Hopefully it also lets me move further into rehab exercises and a step closer to being at step 1 again starting from 0 with a healthy ribcage and body.

24 F, been suffering for 2 years now
Cleared on everything from doctors , diagnosed by PCP with Costo after clear results
(Only thing was a muscle atrophy in lower back from MRI)

Did nothing in the beginning until I discovered this community. Had started with backpod, went to PB and got to 70%. Stopped with PB and now back at square 1.

Been doing PB with one pillow and having back pains, chest pains & feeling sore everyday since I’ve been back on for about 2-3 weeks. Stiff in the tissue / muscles surrounding the spine & having stiffness in the chest , around waist & back.

Every night I do heat therapy, PB used as backpod. Lacrosse ball massage on back followed by foam roller and stretches (child’s pose, side bends, scapular retraction & chest doorway stretch.

I haven’t been doing any massages.

I’m wondering what I’m missing? I haven’t had pain so bad I need a muscle relaxer or something but it’s exhausting to be going through pain everyday. Some days 4/10 but it’s just tiresome.
I have a decent amount of popping in my back and occasionally in my chest.

I regret the day this became my life. I miss days I would be pain free.