chest pain - any ideas, help????

[quote:4a38755257=\"ginantonic16\"]My 17 year old daughter had pleurisy a few months ago, and was sent home from the a & e with paracetamol. The pain was making her cry, and lasted about a week.

Tonight, she has chest pain again, and has gone to the walk-in centre, who have checked her oxygen intake which is at 70% and her pulse is fast, so they have now sent her to a & e for an xray (again.)

She is in quite a lot of pain, and is scared, but they keep throwing long words at her that she doesn't understand, like pulmonary, and pleuritic.

I can't go with her as I have both my feet in plaster and can't drive at the moment, so a friend has taken her.

I feel useless, so I am just sitting waiting for her to come home with paracetamol again.

Has anyone any ideas and can suggest anything that will help her? She finds it hard to sleep lying down, can't eat, and is just generally very miserable.

Thanks. [/quote:4a38755257]

It's now the next morning and she finally got hone at 2am, yes, with paracetamol again. Has chest Xrays which showed nothing, and her sats were obviously down because she could only take shallow breaths because it hurt. Not impressed, as they couldn't even tell her how long it would last or anything. She had to spend 3 hours waiting in a&e to be told that. Again. :roll:

This sounds just like i was. The pain is awful and when you breath it feels like you are being stabbed from inside.................I was given brufen tablets 400mg 4 times a day and co-codamol too. found the brufen helped and a hot water bottle eases it a little .But it does take a long time to go I still have a stabbing pain 4 weeks on

Hope your daughter feels better soon ........Try brufen tablets after food ( only if she can take them though)

Sue x

Hi,

Pleurisy is when the 2 membranes surrounding the lung become inflamed and rub against each other causing pain.

I'm currently suffering with this now and I'm off work as to lie down, breathe, move about in general is painful.

I'm on 400 mg of ibruprofen 3 a day which helps some what but still experiencing some pain and as brand i'm on only allows 3 means I still have periods of the day where i'm in quite alot of pain particulary when I cough.(absolute agony!!)

I too had a chest xray and blood tests seeming to rule out any signs of infection.

My cousin has suffered a collapsed lung and says this is way less painful than pleurisy(which she's also had).

Plenty of rest, nsaid's (non steroidal anti inflammatorys, providing she's ok with these) and she'll start to feel a wee bit better.

take care Laila

:D Thank you everyone for replying, it's good to chat to others about things. My daughter seems better today, probably because she now knows she's not having a heart attack and dying (she really did think that).

Her electric blanket is helping a lot, especially if she lies on her tummy, which she says is comfortable for her, better than on her back.

She hasn't been prescribed anything, the hosp gave her a \"small blue pill\" but she couldn't remember what it was called, but it helped! She has just had ibuprofen today, and is ok. She says she is going back to college tomorrow, even though I didn't think it a good idea, but she says she's better with something to take her mind off it. She was told by the hosp that it is something that will keep coming back once you've had it.

Thank you again everyone for your advice. :D

The blood tests may have been to rule out a clot, I had the same done with my pleurisy as a precaution. It is worth remembering you can take paracetamol in between the nsaid's/ibuprofen if in pain. Just don't go over the maximum dose in 24 hours for each drug. I can't take anti inflammatories so I have been taking cocodamol, which is codeine and paracetamol combined.