upper left back pain

[painreliefplease]

I have been having upper back left pain since about January now.7 months later still here. I had chest x-ray and MRI of the spin a few months ago that came back fine.It is around my lung are or shoulder blades.Stabbing aching sometimes hurts to breathe in.Dr. says muscles..Would it be muscle problems 7 months later and still hurting.I work in retail so I do alot of lifting but I did not injure myself.Not sure what to do.Sometimes the pain stabes on the right side to.

[RJ233]

Sorry I meant to send that to you and accidently put in the comment name from Fluffysmon.

[RJ233]

Are the muscles in that area tight or swollen? Does it hurt worse when you lift or do something that pulls on those muscles?If that is what the doctor said, did he give you any type of muscle relaxer to help it? He didn't recommend any therapy, either? I would have to question him about that. If pain goes up the left shoulder blade, I don't know about constant pain, but I do know that back pain that runs up the left side of the back can be a symptom of problems with the gall bladder. If nothing else helps such as the heat and ice suggested when applied to the area, I would have that checked out. I had gall bladder problems for a long time before it got so bad I went to the hospital. It seems strange that it would affect the back shoulder blade but it does. They can check that with an x-ray. I don't know about affecting the right side, but I do know about the left. If it starts hurting when you eat food that has a lot of fat in it like dip with sour cream, or greasey meat, etc., then I would check out the gall bladder. The dr told me it was referred pain.
Hope everything works out that they find the problem. I would sure go back, so he could check out the problem further. If you don't get any results from him then go to another dr. Tell him they have not been able to diagnose the problem. You could have 2 things going on at once.

[Fluffysmom]

I'm sorry about your pain.  I have experienced a similar pain, and I have an old compression fracture of T-7, and no one has been able to explain or help my pain.

You may want to try another doctor, if that is possible.  Maybe some physical therapy.  It could be a repetetive motion injury, from lifting and twisting at work, that doesn't hurt at the time, but adds up to a lot of pain.

You could have tendonitis (I had that as a grocery checker), or muscle spasms that cause nerve pain.  There is a condition called costral chondritis (sp?), where the intercostral muscles spasm and ache.

It is worth seeing if some heat, ice, massage, ultrasound, or other physical therapy treatments might help.  They may be able to show you how to strengthen other muscles so the ones that are hurting aren't overworked.

Have you tried ice at home?  Try talking to your doctor again, and see if you can be sent for some physical therapy.  7 months is too long to be dealing with pain from muscles without any kind of treatment.

I wish you the best of luck and freedom from the pain!

Kathy