Kickas.org Forums Ankylosing Spondylitis General Discussion #1 AS Web Support Group ribcage discomfort and THE FEAR

Hi everyone.
Over the past few weeks I've encountered tightness and discomfort on the bottom part of the front of my ribcage when I wake up in the morning. It's just enough to get me out of bed about an hour earlier than I normally would choose (maybe it's a stretch, but I consider that a bright side..hehe). Like I said though, it's not pain, more severe discomfort. A lot of the discomfort seems to reside underneath the ribcage. For example, if you were to make hooks with your fingers and dig under and alongside the inside of the ribcage, this is where much of the discomfort resides. The discomfort is 360 degrees around the body, but much more focused in the front than the back.

I was diagnosed 4 years ago, have been Enbrel with many reservations, and have been giving in to the startches too much lately.

For many of us, AS seems to jump around, here and there. My AS has resided almost completely in my lower back, but now I fear a new battle is on the horizon.

For those of you with ribcage discomfort, pain, or fusion, does this sound like a likely beginning?

Thank you for taking the time to read this. Resisting the starches is easy when you've got "the fear"... It's tough when I lose it...

ben

ps I've got an appt with my rheumy next week.

Hi Ben, I'm glad to hear you have an appointment with your rheumy. This sounds like a new development and he/she may be able to give you some concrete answers.

That said, rib cage pain is nothing new around here. A fair few of us have experienced it. I often have tightness in that area, usually more on one side than the other, often more along the area around the side of my torso. Pain is generally a sign that there's something going on, so please do ensure you talk to your rheumy about this.

How is the Enbrel working for you?

Hugs,

I get a lot of pain in the rib cage area and yes sometimes it does feel like a band. It moves around, some days it's here and other days it's there. I also find the worse the weather = greater the pain in the New England states.
If I can't get in the shower right off, I like to put something warm on it to ease the pain. I find a rice sock works really well.
Hope you feel better soon.

I too have had major rib cage pain, lower left, used to feel like a giant "knot" that wouldn't go away. Also tightness along the sides--the ribs actually attach to the back so it's hard to tell where the pain orginates. My left chest area used to hurt a lot, but it may have been referred from another area. The origin of pain is sometimes not where you feel it--and that's a challenge trying to figure out where the problem is. Hope this helps.

Yes, Ben7. Ribcage pain - right side, tight and painful/uncomfortable. I try and keep it s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d but since the bout with pleurisy it is *extremely painful to do the stretches. Sigh.

Yes, I also 'try' to keep the starches down. A member (John?) posted the other day: cake, pasta, potatoes, and ?bread - are the danger foods. I keep em cut down. Hope you feel better soon -

Molly
Keeping on Keeping on

Hey Ben,

I wish I could tell you of a time when my ribs did not hurt all the way around. I get similar symptoms along with cramps on my sides and back of the mid rib cage area. The term the doctor used was costochondritis if you want to look it up her is a link with some information http://www.medicinenet.com/costochondritis_and_tietze_syndrome/article.htm

Hope this helps out a bit. Many your rheumy can give you a better idea of what he thinks, but rib cage pain is very common with AS. I have known a few folks who have gone in to the ER with the rib pain and been checked out to make sure it was not a heart attack with me included.

Brent

Count me in, my rib pain has been keeping me awake most of the night for almost three months now. I can tell you it's getting really old! Mine also in on the side and towards the back, so far not in the front. I'm going to start taking steroids tomorrow to see if that will kick it. I sure hope so.

You can count me in too. Almost everyday I wake up with rib pain. It feels like a huge rock had been sat on me and my body doesnt want to move but I have to in order to get stretched out... It is really hurting today, I think I heard we have another storm coming our way later tonight early Friday morning..I wish they could find something that really helps....


Angie

Thanks Kat,

The Enbrel is working well, but I'm going to see how I do without it when I run out of the stock that I have. I have a couple of months left. I find that I get pretty run down the day after I inject. At times I wonder how much of that is psycholigical and how much is real. Either way, one day after injection, I find that more often than not, I walk around completely exhausted.

I've been doing yoga every morning for about an hour. It's amazing how much that helps. If only I had similar discipline to evade the starches. That challenge goes up and down, some weeks are better than others, but once I'm out of Enbrel, I'll do everything I can to go starch free.

I'm going to try to quell the disease with diet and yoga. The potential long term side effects of Enbrel keep me on edge. My grandma has MS. I don't want to instigate a disease like MS. It could be irrational fear, but it's there nonetheless. I've been on Enbrel since I was diagnosed, my early 20s. If I were to come down with MS or lymphoma someday without ever abstaining from Enbrel, I guess there'd always be a big "what if"...

Enbrel changed my life. It reaquainted me to a life without pain. I thought I'd be on it permanently before kickas empowered me to think about the possibilities of taking the disease into my own hands. I'm thankful for the life Enbrel has given me back, but I'm ready to see how life can be without it.

How have you been on Enbrel, Kat? Thank you for the post.

ben

I'm so glad to hear that the Enbrel helps. I understand your fears and, certainly, with your family history, the doctors should be watching your blood work on a regular basis. That said, to my mind, even tho I have completely changed my lifestyle to better deal with my AS, Remicade is a risk work taking. It gave me a life I didn't know I could have. I first started on it 2.5 years ago (almost 4 years post diagnosis and after over 20 years of living with AS and not knowing it) and it had dramatic results for me with ease of mobility and energy levels. I too worry that I might get a lymphoma, however, having done as much research as my science phobic brain can handle, I've realized that lymphoma is relatively rare in the general public (as these things go anyway) and although we have an increased risk on the biologics, our chances of being run over as we cross the road are still greater.

I'm very glad to hear you do yoga. For me the key is pilates and my dance classes. I also do weight training (but that's kind of fallen by the wayside this fall - I'll pick it up again after the holidays). I would suggest that over the next few months until your Enbrel supply runs out, you make the dietary changes you want to make. Learn to live with them long before the Enbrel runs out. That way, when you must be without it, any benefits of the diet will have had time to kick in. It can take up to 2 months for some people to show results on dietary changes. So, if you start now, you should have a fairly good idea of how much it's working for you when you stop the Enbrel.

As for 'what if' ... Ben, life is a series of what ifs. If we lived our lives in fear of what might happen at some nebulous time in the future, we'd never do anything. All you can do is get the information, make your decisions based on that information and what's right for you. Things will happen, or they won't. There's no point worrying about it when there is so much of life infront of you today.

Hugs,