New Pain When You Take a Deep Breath? Common Causes and Red Flags
A reader wrote in to the website saying that they experience pain when they take a deep breath. They want to know what might be causing it, and whether it could be temporary or long-term.
According to Cleveland Clinic, pleurisy is one common cause of sharp chest pain that gets worse when breathing in or coughing. Pleurisy happens when the lining inside the chest wall becomes inflamed, and the pain may spread to the shoulder or back.
What can cause pain when taking a deep breath?
We all get strange aches as we get older, but pain tied to breathing can involve the lungs, ribs, muscles, chest lining, or heart.
Pain with a deep breath can feel sharp, stabbing, tight, burning, sore, or achy. Some people feel it in one small spot. Others feel it across the chest, in the back, or near the shoulder.
Cedars-Sinai states that pleurisy pain can be mild or severe. Sometimes it only appears when someone breathes deeply or coughs. Other times, it can be present all the time and then get worse with deep breathing or coughing. Other symptoms may include fever, cough, shortness of breath, and rapid breathing.
A simple muscle strain can also hurt when the chest expands. That may happen after heavy lifting, a hard cough, a fall, or an awkward twist. Rib irritation or costochondritis, which is inflammation around the rib joints near the breastbone, can cause chest pain that may feel worse with movement or breathing.
Pneumonia can also bring pain with breathing. In that case, the pain may come with fever, chills, cough, mucus, fatigue, sweating, fast heartbeat, or trouble breathing. For older adults, that mix should not be ignored.
Ubie Health adds that chest pain with a deep breath can come from the lungs or the chest wall. Possible causes include pleurisy, pneumonia, muscle strain, rib problems, and more serious issues such as a blood clot in the lung.
The symptoms that help tell the story
Pain that started after yard work, exercise, coughing, or a fall may point more toward muscle or rib irritation. Pain that comes with fever, cough, chills, or fatigue may point more toward infection.
If the pain is making someone take shallow breaths, that matters. Cedars-Sinai adds that people with pleurisy may breathe quickly and shallowly because deep breathing hurts.
Shortness of breath changes the picture. So does dizziness, sweating, nausea, coughing up blood, blue lips, faintness, or a racing heartbeat. Those are not “watch it for a week” symptoms and should result in you seeking immediate medical help.
Verywell Health found that pain with deep breathing can have many possible causes, including pneumonia, pulmonary embolism, pneumothorax, heart attack, GERD, rib fractures, costochondritis, muscle strain, shingles, and digestive problems. That wide list is why guessing from home can get risky.
A collapsed lung, also called pneumothorax, can cause sharp chest pain that gets worse when breathing in. Medical News Today highlights that symptoms may also include shortness of breath, chest tightness, heart palpitations, fatigue, or blue skin and lips.
Heart-related pain can be tricky, too. It may feel like pressure, tightness, heaviness, squeezing, or pain that spreads to the arm, jaw, neck, back, or shoulder.
Temporary pain or something long-term?
Some causes may be temporary. A pulled muscle, mild rib irritation, or pain after a respiratory infection may improve as the body heals.
The Cleveland Clinic states that pleurisy may come from infections, autoimmune diseases, lung disease, chest trauma, rib fractures, blood clots in the lung, certain medicines, and other conditions.
That means the real question is not just “Will it go away?” It’s “What is causing it?” A doctor may need to listen to the lungs, check oxygen levels, order blood tests, do an EKG, or use imaging such as a chest X-ray or CT scan.
When to contact a doctor
Contact a doctor for any new, unexplained pain when taking a deep breath, especially if it lasts more than a day or two, keeps coming back, or changes how you breathe, sleep, cough, walk, or move.
Go to urgent care or the ER if the pain is sudden, severe, worsening, or paired with fever, chills, shortness of breath, dizziness, fainting, sweating, rapid heartbeat, coughing up blood, blue lips, confusion, or pain spreading to the arm, jaw, neck, back, or shoulder.
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