Back pain-sometimes very bad pain

[JamesOmron]

Dear Doctor,

I have back pain and once in a while would be very unbearable. It's like suddenly someone stabbed on my back. The pain is somewhere around the should blades, lower part both sides.

I have stage 4 slipped disc on C5/C6 area and haven't gone for surgery and if possible would want to avoid it.

Sometimes I feel the pain in chest area and it scares me as I felt like having a heart attack. But after I calm down, I'll feel the pain is actually coming from my back.

After numerous test (ECG, Holter monitor, etc), I have also been diagnosed with SVT by the electro physiologist (because of my palpitations), however no damaged pathways was found during catheter ablation. Basically the procedure done on me was rather pointless.

I also notice most of the time, my palpitation would come when the back pain becomes so unbearable.

I have also been experiencing attacks of costochondritis. I would be feeling extreme pain on chest, especially when I press on the pain area and sometimes would be accompanied by a slight fever. I say attacks because the pain will come suddenly (even when I'm lying down) and usually the pain is only there between 10 minutes to 1 hour and the pain would be scattered around my chest (it is not at the same place all the time). I have not been carrying heavy things, doing rough work for the last 6 months.

My question is; can my palpitation be caused by the back pain?

And, is the pain at the shoulder blades related to my slipped disc?

Lastly, what could cause the attacks of costochondritis?

[JamesOmron]

Hi Sogagal,
Thanks a lot for sharing. Its a bit of a relief knowing that someone is actually having almost the same problem with me!

I have been to several orthopedic doctors and none can really conclude if the pain at shoulder blades I'm having is caused by the c5-c6 ruptured discs. All of them gave the same answer, "Maybe".

I'm now thinking to see a rheumatologist but haven't had the chance yet.

The article you provided was really technical and I can't really understand it..lol..maybe a few more reads would help me to understand more...

Thanks again for sharing! I hope we can both recover soon.

[sogagal]

PS My doctors have said that it is possible that the chest pain is due to nerve damage in the C spine. I had an EKG while I was having the chest pain and it did not show a problem with my heart.

[sogagal]

I am no dr. but I have the same thing. The pain in the back increases when I use my arms like washing dishes, typing, even eating while sitting at a table.  I have had fusions from C4- C7. It helped other pain but not this burning, itching awful pain nor the chest pains. I found that when I have the chest pains, if I put the pads of my tens on the area of back pain, the chest pains stop almost immediatly. I also have recently found an article which talks about the back pain(but not chest pain) and equates it to C spine nerve root damage, possiblly t spine degeneration and long thoracic muscle because of damage to the nerve roots in the C spine. . It is kind of arduos reading but is informative about a new theory. Treatment is an Electrical Muscle stimulator  with pad placement on the side under the arm pit. It seems that the nerve root damage causes problems in the anterior serratus muscle which the referrs pain to the area between the t spine and shoulder blade. Weird huh? Here is the link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2758879/