Pleurisy and Pleural Effusion

[nerd]

Here is a particularly odd symptom I sometimes experience. On the left side of my chest, I sometimes feel a pointy pain. When I lay my hand on the area, I then feel that there is something like a bubble coming out between the rib bones. It's not my heartbeat because it only happens every 10 seconds or so, and it immediately fades away. When it's very pronounced, I can even see it under the skin as it pushes out.

Sometimes, I lose my consciousness out of a sudden. One time, I called the ambulance after such an incident and they made a chest scan at the hospital. There was a slight shadow on the left side of my lungs. They suggested making a lungoscopy or lung scintigraphy, but I decided to leave the same day because they couldn't even manage to supply food to their patients properly due to a software system failure.

Now I wonder what could cause this. It must be some kind of fluid buildup between the lungs and the rib bones, so basically pleurisy and/or pleural effusion. This can happen with autoimmune diseases, viral infections, collapsed lungs, chest trauma, cancer, and other causes of inflammation.

Pain in the chests isn't uncommon with CFS/ME and long haulers, as I read. I wonder if it's related this. Another explanation for pain in the chest area might be swollen or inflamed lymph nodes. But lymph nodes don't cause such bubbles or however to call it.

 

[Sushi]

@nerd I had bi-lateral pleural effusion that was diagnosed by chest x-ray shortly after I was diagnosed with severe mitral valve regurgitation. The cardiologists didn't think that the regurgitation caused it...yet the temporal connection was notable. I did have some sort of infection at the same time--seemingly bacterial as it responded to antibiotics. I was given diuretics and monitored by chest x-ray and it cleared up in a couple of weeks. I had a cough and shortness of breath as symptoms. No one ever was clear as to the cause.

Later, I had the mitral valve fixed. Hope you get answers.

 

[Judee]

I also wonder if this could be rib subluxation for you.

That is very painful too and where many of us have hyperjoint mobility, that could account for it coming and going like you described--maybe even that bubble coming out between the ribs.

My body is always going out of joint in one area or another throughout the day.

Anyway, it's just a thought.

 

[nerd]

I also wonder if this could be rib subluxation for you.

It's definitely a liquid bubble, no simple rib movement. It's a single spot between the ribs.