• Welcome to Phoenix Rising!

    Created in 2008, Phoenix Rising is the largest and oldest forum dedicated to furthering the understanding of and finding treatments for complex chronic illnesses such as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), fibromyalgia (FM), long COVID, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), and allied diseases.

    To become a member, simply click the Register button at the top right.

Heart? Lung? Muscular skeletal?

Fuzzyhead

Senior Member
Messages
372
Can any of these cause back pain?
Left Back/shoulder ache for 4 month.
Constant mucus in the back of my throat which i feel is from my nose but nothing there when i blow!!
Can hear mucus when i laugh etc
Hurts down my left side of neck/back/side if i twist my torso or stretch my arms forward, lay on my back on the floor.
 

Silence

Senior Member
Messages
102
Location
Northern CA
I think it could be any one of those three suggestions, but have you ever heard of a condition called spontaneous pneumothorax? I often get "air leaks" that stem from blisters, called "blebs", on the the lung "popping" spontaneously which can cause a pneumothorax (collapsing of the lung). This may or may not cause a pneumothorax depending on how much air has escaped the lung. I've even had lung surgery to glue my lung to the chest wall because I eventually developed a 30% of my lung collapsing from these blisters persistently popping and leaking air.

Often the pain felt from an air leak will cause sort of sharp pain that sometimes moves through the lung cavity to the areas of least resistance and sometimes can feel bubbly. The pain is usually felt in the chest, the back near the shoulder blades, the neck, the collarbone, the sides of the chest and the bottom.

Symptoms: shortness of breath, really bad pain in any of the places I mentioned. Not being able to take a full breath. Tachycardia

Diagnosis: It can be seen on an x-ray if large enough, but sometimes x-rays can miss it, and a CT scan is needed. Diminished breath sounds.

Prognosis: Sometimes when people have small collapses they are able to reabsorb the air and heal, but if air leaks continuously then it could lead to something callled a tension pnuemothorax which is life threatning. And requires a chest tube and maybe surgical intervention- which I had.

I am tall and skinny and have Ehlers Danlos syndrome. These 2 factors predispose me to having lung collapses.