I've had a viral infection for the best part of 3.5 weeks, awful hacking cough, coughing up green stuff, just generally feeling awful since the 2nd week of January. Earlier this week I started to get a horrible stabbing pain in my chest, just under my right breast, through my rib cage. It's markedly worse when coughing or breathing deeply, I'm having to take shallow breaths just to manage the pain. Coughing is reducing me to tears. I was seen by a GP on Wednesday who listened to my chest and said he could hear "crackling" on the side where the pain is and thought it was pleurisy. He said he could prescribe antibiotics just in case it was bacterial and not viral, but I decided I wanted to see how I got on first as I didn't want to take antibiotics unnecessarily. This weekend then pain has become significantly worse. I've never had a broken rib but I imagine this is close to what it might feel like. Every breath, movement and cough is agony. Rang 111 just now and they've advised going to A&E to be seen. I'm just wondering if there's anything at all they can do for pleurisy? Are there any treatments? Is it worth me sitting in A&E all night to be told to take paracetamol which I can do at home? The pain is unbearable and I can't go on like this. But also I'm not convinced they can do much for it.
Any experiences of this? Thanks.