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Pregnancy

Talk about every stage of pregnancy, from early symptoms to preparing for birth.

Very painful shoulder/upper back/chest pain. Help!

4 replies

Wintermummy18 · 10/10/2023 21:59

Hello,

I’d be really grateful if anyone has experienced what I’m going through and help calm my nerves a bit. Sorry this is a bit long!

I am 32 weeks pregnant with 1st baby. Two nights ago I randomly started to get some left sided upper back/shoulder blade pain which gradually got worse. I woke up in the night and it was bad enough for me to think I should go to A&E as was radiating into my left chest when I took a deep breath. Seen by various doctors, given a ECG, chest X-ray (clear), Ultrasounds of both legs to check for DVT (clear). D dimer test for blood clots was high but normally is in pregnancy so not a helpful result. Consultant gave me the option to have a CT/VQ scan to confirm if there was a PE (clot in lung) but said he was pretty confident it was musculoskeletal linked to pregnancy so based off of that I decided not to go with the scan due to the radiation. I then ended up back in A&E last night due to waking up in the night with excruciating pain and I didn’t know what to do with myself. I’ve been tachycardic the whole time. Did end up having a CT scan today which was clear so no clots, which is great. However, the pain is absolutely unbearable and I genuinely don’t know how I’m going to sleep as any position is so painful and any movement hurts. I’ve had about 4 hours sleep since Sunday night. I feel like I’ve tried everything. Paracetamol isn’t touching it, I do have some codeine to take now but this didn’t really do anything in hospital either. I feel like I’m at my wits end.

I can’t seem to find much about other women experiencing this in pregnancy. Anyone else have any ideas or experienced this and can tell me it does go away? I’m terrified this is going to continue throughout the rest of pregnancy.

OP posts:
Wintermummy18 · 11/10/2023 16:49

Bump

OP posts:
Yarnle · 11/10/2023 22:41

Sorry to hear you are struggling, pregnancy can be so difficult.
Just a thought, does the pain have any triggers? After a fatty meal? Could it be your gallbladder? I only suggest this as I have suffered multiple attacks whilst pregnant which were unbearable and I almost went to A+ E but the pain passed after a couple of hours after each attack.
Gallbladder issues are very common in pregnancy so just a thought, although don’t normally present on the left side. Nevertheless , something to rule out with your doctor! I pushed for an ultrasound of mine as I couldn’t take it anymore and that confirmed gallstones which is now managed by diet.
Hope it gets sorted OP!

BabyMomma2021 · 11/10/2023 22:45

My immediate thought was gallstones too! So common during and after pregnancy. I had similar pain to what you describe during gallbladder attacks!
As pp said, can you correlate the pain to any specific food, particularly fatty food?
I would perhaps suggest gallstones to your GP so they can check it out!
Sorry you are dealing with this, it's horrific pain

Wintermummy18 · 12/10/2023 21:53

Thank you for your replies ☺️ the pain doesn’t change after food, it’s more with movement and taking a proper breath that it hurts the most. It would be unusual for gallstones to be on the left, but if it continues I’ll definitely ask my GP if it could be a possibility as I hadn’t even thought of that! I’ve had a slightly better day today, things feel a bit looser. So I’m really hoping it’s muscular and starting to ease a bit. I know the baby is breech at the moment, I’m not sure if that would have anything to do with it?!

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