Can someone help? I have some bad back and chest pain.

Ice it. Sounds like you may have slipped a disc at least that is how mine felt. Ice it to help stop the swelling of the injured muscles. Take a lot of Ibuprofen. Ow!! I feel bad for you.

Are you having any trouble breathing? Does it feel the same on both sides of your chest? Does it hurt more when you take a deep breath? Have you taken any pain medication for it?

@JLeslie all i have is Tyenol, me and my girlfriend are broke right now. It doesn’t hurt to breathes but it does when I take deep breaths. It hurts in the middle of my chest between the pecs and circles around to the back. Oh, and I have used ice, it helped slightly. Is there a way I could maybe stretch it out or something?

Do you have insurance?

Can you borrow the cash from your families to go to an urgent care/rapid care facility?

Much cheaper than the ER.

Usually around $90—$120 a visit with exam and prescriptions and, often they have free samples they can give you.

Otherwise, maybe try more ice, or heat. A hot bath. moist heat often helps.

If you do not feel much improved in the next 24 hours I think you will have no choice but to figure out a way to be seen.

Good luck!

I would not use ice. If it is muscular, maybe the muscle needs to relax, which would be acheived with warm not cold.

When you say it circles around to the back, do you mean straight throught to your back? Or, literally it feels like it goes around your sides?

I have to be honest, I usually have a few good guesses on medical stuff, but I am very unsure on this one. It seems unlikely it is your heart, since it happened while you were bending down, but God forbid it is your heart, waiting is very dangerous. Since it is right in the center, maybe it has to do with your diaphragm? Or, some other muscle pull? Seems likeif it was a collapsed lung it would not be in the center. Cold you have fractured a rib? Seems like that would be unlikely to be right in the center too.

You really need to see a doctor. Is there a free clinic where you live?

If you become suddenly worst you must see a doctor.

Maybe an urgent care center won’t be very expensive if there is no free clinic. Make sure wherever you go they can do xrays there. Pretty sure they will want to xray you.

Ibuprofin 800 mg, that is 4 tabs in the bottle that you buy at the store. Also ice on the area. Drink lots of water.

@JLeslie Yeah, I mean literally a circle like Saturn. I don’t have insurance and I am at my girlfriend’s so the nearest person for help is a state away. I have only recently started living on my own so that’s why I don’t have insurance. @josie And yeah, I have been doing water. I’m thinking maybe I’ll put warm on the back, cold in the front. Would that be good?

I just am not familiar with the “circle” symptom. At least look in a phone book or google and see if there are any urgent clinics near by and how much it will cost you to be seen. You said you only recently started out on your own, I think your parents might help you pay for this. Did you call them? I would want my son to be looked at by a doctor in this situation. I would not harp on him now being responsible for his own finances. You are brand new on your own getting started, don’t be too proud to ask for help from your family. Unless there is some sort of bad history between you and your parents? Even so, I think you might want to get advice from them.

Ibuprofen will treat muscle pain better than tylenol, if this is a muscle problem.

@JLeslie Alright thanks, I might wait about two hours then I might have to call my parents. They will probably scream but I’ll try. I’ll try everything you guys reccomended so thank you very much. I just hope the pain doesn’t last to long.

No. Ice and ibuprofin.

@TrkReznor, unless your parents have dropped you from their health insurance plan, you’re covered to age 26 as of 9/21010.

Pleurisy comes to my mind. Take ibuprofin to see if that helps. You should try to see a doctor if you don’t get much much better quickly.

@BarnacleBill Isn’t that only if they are paying for him to be covered?

Yes, but it depends on when the effective date of their plan is, and when he moved out. Most plans are 1/1 effectives, but a significant number of groups have 7/1 effective dates as well. If his parent had a family plan that he was covered on with other siblings, and the effective date is 7/1, then he would be covered until that date even though he has moved out. It used to be to age 23 if the dependent was a full time student, but that requirement changed with healthcare reform because too many people were graduating from college and cannot afford their own health care insurance.

It’s worth a call to the parents to see when the effective date on the plan is, and if he’s still covered.

@BarnacleBill I am not talking about whether he is a dependent or not. I am talking about whether they are paying for him or not. I am eligible to be covered under my husband’s health from work, because I am his spouse. But, if he chooses single coverage, and only pays single coverage, I have no health insurance, whether the law, or the company allows me to be covered or not.

However, I do see your point that possibily the parents have not altered the plan they were already paying while he lived at home, and might be still paying for his coverage.

@perspicacious

He said he injured himself while bending over, so most likely an injury rather than an illness.

Affordable Care Act

@JLeslie, understood. I also know that my daughter’s friends feel that because they have moved out, they are “on their own.” Being dropped from parent’s coverage takes action on the parent’s part, either by dropping their child from their plan or by not adding them to the renewal application.

It used to be that health insurance companies sent out student status verification notices, and would drop dependents after the age of 19 if they could not send proof of school enrollment. That no longer will happen.

@BarnacleBill We’re on the same page.

It’s important to use immediate care when you can, rather than an ER room An ER trip is $2500 – $3500, but immediate care is $90 – $300, depending on what they have to do to you.

When you injure your back like you did your body goes into self defense mode. You may have pinched a nerve, pulled a muscle or worse herniated a disc. What is going on is a series of muscles have locked up in your back to protect nerves and or your spine from further injury. It is like a white knuckle death grip and you will need to ice to stop any swelling from making things worse. I would ice most of tonight and again in the am. I would not stretch just yet give it a day or 2 before you do that. I had that same metal band around the chest pain with my injury and will go away if you do not irritate it further. If you are not reasonably comfortable in 3–5 days you may have really done something more. I went around for 2 months until I got a second opinion that I had herniated my disc. I was able to heal on my own but it was a hellacious painful recovery. I did yoga and in 3 weeks I was reasonably pain free. Just be so very careful in your movements and bending. Bend with your knees and no lifting.

Let me repeat—ICE! It sounds like your muscles are spasming (not a heart attack), and you need to get them to cool down. Heat will only make it worse. There’s a lot of that chemical that makes muscles tighten running around, and I believe that cooling the muscles down makes it harder for that chemical to travel.

Just lie down, pack ice around you (in ice bags, or those things you buy a drug stores). You might want to keep your shirt on the inside, but I like the ice bag to be directly in contact with my skin. You’ll need a lot since it’s all the way around your chest and back. But you should feel the pain subsiding within an hour. Don’t try to move after that.

At the same time, you probably want to find out the cause of this. I’ve never experienced anything like it, just a lot of spasms in my back and neck. If it’s a slipped disc, like @Cruiser said, I would think a doctor would know how to help. I would think you could go to a regular doctor to start out with. They’ll know whether you need further analysis. Perhaps you might need an x-ray.

As to payment—let’s hope you are on your parent’s insurance. Then it’ll be nothing more than the copayment costs.

As to health—a hospital has to see you, even if you can’t pay. They have to treat you. If you never pay, they write it off as uncompensated care. Health care costs are the largest source of bankruptcies in the US. But you can’t worry about that. It’s important to get the care you need first, and worry about payment later. You have no idea how many people don’t pay. Sure, the collectors will call, and your credit may suffer, but you can work around that. Eventually you go back to the hospital and cut a deal.

Editorial note: isn’t health care reform wonderful? People still think about cost before health. I’m just so proud to live in a country where insured people think the poor health of others doesn’t affect them.

That was sarcasm for those who didn’t get it.

@Coloma He said he bent over and got stuck. That can happen when you have pleurisy.