So I'm sitting on my bed, with pillows on my lower back and shoulders, sipping hot lemon ginger tea. I have this sharp pain on the left rib when I inhale deeply, and it goes along the back as well. It all happened while I was shopping in Brown Thomas. Aish, I suspect the main culprit is Mr Brown Thomas himself, giving away 50% discounts on all the luxurious goods, leaving me all stressed out, in between fighting over the bags.So i felt uncomfortable when I tried to breathe in, and brushed it off, as one of those days when you need to sit down and enjoy a cuppa after damaging your wallet.
But by the break of dawn, it got very painful to breathe and I sought help from Amna to scratch my back and neck with a coin. I learned about this traditional method of releasing gas/wind on troubled area from my maid. The magical thing about it, is that, it will be bright reddish tiny spots on the area which is suppose to hurt. My friends have never heard of this method before, so they were in it for a shock, upon discovering the red spots after scratching my back. But that didn't work as well, so I had to use the deep heat to ease my pain. But did it? No it didn't as well.
Why not go to the Clinic? Because the nearest 24 hours clinic is in Blackrock. Bongokkan Dublin ni?
So I searched the symptoms I had on the Internet, and found out something, that sounded pretty much what I am suffering at the moment.
Precordial Catch Syndrome (PCS), also known as Texidor's twinge, is a common cause of chest pain complaints in children and adolescents. It also occurs less frequently in adults. PCS manifests itself as a very intense, sharp pain typically at the left side of the chest which is worse when taking breaths.
Its symptoms begin with a sudden onset of anterior chest pain on the left side of the chest. The pain is localized and does not radiate like heart attack pain typically does. Breathing in, and sometimes breathing out, often intensifies the pain. Typically this causes the patient to freeze in place and breathe shallowly until the episode passes. Episodes typically last a couple of seconds to three minutes. The frequency of episodes varies by patient, sometimes occurring daily, multiple episodes each day, or years between episodes. This is believed to be localized cramping of certain muscles groups. Intensity of pain can vary from a dull annoying pain to intense pain causing momentary vision loss/bluriness.
Although deep inhalation during a PCS attack will likely cause an increase in pain, many have found that forcing themselves to breathe as deeply as possible will result in a "popping" or "ripping" sensation which quickly and completely resolves the PCS episode.
So I've tried to breathe in deeply for the popping sensation, but there was none. In fact now I wish I can press the bubble wrap and hear the rippling sound. It reminds me of my late grandmother. She will let me press the bubble wrap from her Jacobs biscuit tin, while she has her oatmeal biscuits.:(
So the Doctor told me, that my lungs sounded normal, no mucus to suggest anything threatening, but having said that, he also mentioned the possibility of having a blood clot, and that the only way to find out is by going for an x-ray. So referred me to Mater Hospital, which is about 5 minutes by taxi. I'm thinking, if it still hurts by tomorrow, I will give it a go.
In the meantime, I've been burping like a cow overdozed on onions. You know what they say about onions giving you wind, but sadly, I've not been able to let out a ripping fart. So maybe, there's wind/gas or whatever it is called in medical terms down my lungs/ribcage, I don't know the exact position, but that could possibly be one of the reasons, since I do feel good after burping....for the millionth time....
On the good side, I get two days off from work. Thank God all the financial statements are with their respective directors for signing, and I shall not worry about the June 30th, deadline.
Burpppp...excuse me.
