You better never need to see a doctor

November 2009. I had a pain in my chest, near the diaphragm. First thought: may that be a symptom of an angina attack? heart attack? this latter runs in the family, so it wasn't a very weird thought.

But no, fortunately.

I went to see my general doctor, which sent me home with a list of medication against gastritis and a request to get a check for a hiatus hernia. I got an ecography and it turned out to not be a hiatus hernia. Could it be a gastritis? the medication only made me more sick, but it was worth checking. Thus, I got sent to see a gastroenterologist, who suggested me taking an endoscopy to check things more accurately. Smart idea: get the endoscopy without anesthetic. Painful, terrible experience! Fortunately, nothing was found.

General conclusion: you have a nervous gastritis, which causes a lot of problems, among which this pain in the chest. Take these other medication for the gastritis and these plant medications to help you chill out.

The pain didn't disappear, but I did sleep better.......an average of 10 hours minimum instead of the normal 8.

July 2010. The pain in my chest is still there. I got a check with the gastroenterologist who told me that whatever nervous gastritis I had is gone for now and that no, for sure the pain I feel is not and it was not induced by a gastritis. He had mistaken the source of my pain and thus his idea of what I have. He suggested me to see my general doctor again to ask her to address me to a reumatologist, so that I could get checked for inflammation around the xiphoid area.

I pay a visit to my general doctor who comes up with a few test to run and a few possible hypothesis:

1) you may have a broken rib or a broken piece of xiphoid, but I don't believe so. But let's take an x-ray to check.

2) you may have an inflammation of the area, maybe a cyst there which causes the pain.

3) you may have a bone growth there, which does not necessarily have to be cancerous, but better to check for it and take a scintigraphy (a very very invasive test to take).

I left the doctor, got home and cried a lot for how scared I got after talking to her.

I feel ok. I can't run or do hard core sport because of this pain in my chest, which impede a nice, smooth rib cage expansion. But beside this, I am ok. Every morning I wake up and do some exercise for the arms and some for the abdominal. And everything feels ok.

It didn't make sense.

So, I got the x-ray and the response was that I didn't have anything broken and no need for a scintigraphy because I had an inflammation of the area probably due to a very small and extremely rare kind of hernia from which fat passes trough. If you look on internet for this kind of hernia, it is so rare that there is almost nothing written about it.

Next step, a CT scan analysis was necessary to confirm the existence of this hernia.
I got the CT scan this morning. Beside the fact that it took half an hour to the nurse to find at least one vein in which to inject the nasty compound (they, two people, checked my hands, arms, wrists in search of at least one vein that they could use), beside the fact that the compound burns like hell when it gets into the body and that I felt the need to pee, beside all this, it turned out that no, I don't even have an hernia, that most likely is just a nasty inflammation, but....................since they were checking things, they found something else and they suggested me taking an MRI to confirm the diagnosis.

Ok, so since November last year I got an endoscopy without anesthesia. Two ecographies. An x-ray. A CT scan. Not bad...and all this to tell me what? that basically they have no clue of what gives me the pain, that most likely is a simple inflammation or xiphoid syndrome (if you check on internet it seems that doctors think about this hypothesis as one of the last resources), that I should see another doctor and then get an MRI to check for something which has nothing to do with this pain I feel.......

Definitively better to always feel well!