Costochondritis

For a lay person:

Costochondritis is inflammation of the cartilage that joins the ribs to the breastbone. It causes sharp chest-wall pain that is tender to press and often worse with movement or deep breaths. It is harmless but can be mistaken for heart pain.

For a trained medical person:

A benign, self-limiting cause of anterior chest wall pain with reproducible tenderness at the costochondral junctions. It is a diagnosis of exclusion: cardiac and pulmonary causes must be ruled out first. Treatment is reassurance, analgesia and activity modification.

In Chinese medicine:

Flaws and Sionneau's textbook differentiates this condition as one pattern: Qi and Blood Stagnation. Treatment follows the pattern a patient presents with, not the Western diagnosis alone.

When to get help: Any new chest pain should be checked by a doctor before it is put down to costochondritis.