Breathing deeply causes pain

When I breathe deeply, I feel quite sharp pain in the back of my left lung/side and a smaller amount of pain in the front of my left side just below my heart. I am a 19yr old female and I dont smoke or drink, although I have lived my life around a smoker. This pain started last night randomly and came literally out of nowhere, it hurts when I change position of my left arm but its not muscle strain as I havent done anything strenuous to my body. The pain lessens when I am laying on my left side and breathing deeply, but if I lay on my back or on my right side it goes back to how it was before. Please help, its a Sunday and my doctors arent open today so I have to wait until at least tomorrow to get it checked out.

[Tammy2009]

I'm sorry that I don't have an answer for you.  I'm not sure what it could be.  You should be fine taking some tylenol or advil and getting it checked out as soon as you can.

Good luck and let us know what the doc says.

[MarilynUSAFR]

I recently had a bout with this same thing.  I did go to the doctor as with a lung infection it could be pericarditis, but doubtful.  They did a chest x-ray and determined that I had torn rib cartilage right under my left breast.  The recommendation was to not wear a bra (underwires which are all the rage contribute to this) for at least a week. If you go to Sam's club you can get camis with a shelf bra that are quite comfortable.  Also a cold can of soda occasionally on the affected area helped a lot.  It took about 2 weeks, but it did get better.  Try not to laugh too much, cough or sneeze, but you probably want to have an x ray just to be sure.

This kind of thing hurts like heck especially when lying down.  Hope you feel better soon!