My Costochondritis journey so far

Hi everyone,

It's been a while since I last posted here, I've been kind of busy lately. This post might seem a bit off-topic, but I decided to widen the topics I write about here, that's why I changed the title and URL of my blog, too. Dont worry, I intend to post mainly technical related articles, but this issue has affected my everyday life very much, and I would like to share my knowledge and expereinces related to it. Important to mention, there is not very much literature about this around the web, so I'm glad if I can help with this to people struggling whith the same condition as I am.
My journey began around a year ago, or more. As a bacground to my disease, around two years ago, I had started bodybuilding, and important to mention, that I am a leptosome (thin, skinny, and having a weak structure). In fact, that was one of the reasons I started this sport, because I hated being so skinny. Around that time, I had been about 57 kgs and I am 176 cms tall. You could calculate that my BMI was on the boundary of being underweight.
After a year of doing the sport, (with some struggles and skipped periods, of course) just when I could see some success, gained some weight and started to like it, I started feeling pain in my chest. Initially, it wasn't severe at all, I only felt slight pain after a hard workout, and it usually went away in some days. I had numerous similar episodes, and I didn't care much about them (now looking back, I was a dumbass). I only cared about working out.
But gradually these episodes got more severe, and started worrying me. I still had no idea what they really were, I thought I just strained myself a little. At times, I had so sharp pain that I could not turn over in my bed but these pains were still episodical and I didnt care about them and continued working out three days a week.

My condition changed dramatically, when I had to skip a month working out, because of learning at college. In the meantime, I felt no pain at all. But I had a lot of stress in those days. After this month, I resumed training. A few weeks passed, and I could feel the pain gradually come back, but it was different. It wouldn't go away... Sometimes when stretching, I felt tension in my chest; stretching harder made it pass along with a lould popping noise (like when you stretch your fingers and they pop). But this kind of relief was only temporary, after a day the tension came back, with bigger pain.
That was the point where I started looking around on the Internet what kind of problem do I have really. I quickly found the terms costochondritis, Tietze's syndrome, costal cartilage and so on. You could ask why I didn't go to my doctor in the first place: Because my doctor is an ignorant old son of a b****, and generally I don't trust doctors very much, maybe because I had a lot of bad experiences before. You will see later that I was right not going to the doctor :D
Anyway, the symptoms of Costochondritis perfectly matched with my symptoms, that was enough for me. I mention the just briefly here, because I think the point of my artilcle is to share the personal experience, not the medical info. The prominent symtom is of course the chest pain, which, in some cases, can be severe to the level of debilitating. Luckily, I have never experienced that much pain. The pain can be triggered by the slightest movement of the upper body, because in this condition, as the name implies, the costal cartilage is inflamed, which is part of the costochondral joints that connect the ribs to the sternum. These joints account for the fexibility of your upper body, hence bending, turning around, even sneezing moves them, which trigger the pain. Refer to the wikipedia article which describes the medical problem further:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costochondritis

For most people, this is a bengin condition, that resolves in up to 2 months. My post is not meant for them, but for those, who are struggling with chronic pain. If this disease becomes chronic, like mine, several months, even years are needed until it heals.
You may ask what the cause of costochondritis is. The truth is, NOBODY knows really. There are only assumptions. There are some factors, however, that make it likely to occur, for example physical and mental stress, and a weak body structure. It's not like when you sprain you ankle, I don't remember hurting my chest directly, ever.
And what is the cure for it? Sadly, no pill or cream exist that directly cures it. Only pain medications (which I recommend not to use) exist for relieving the symptoms, and some alternative treatment. I tried numerous methods, which I will tell you later. But back to my story:
After reading around, I realized I had to give up on boybuilding for a while. But that wasn't so easy, I couldn't leave the gym just like that, so I kept going, trying not to strain the area, always facing the problem that I can not rest my costal carilage and do heavy sports at the same time... Maybe that is the main reson my condition became so chronic... So gradually I had to give it up. I skipped about 6 months of bodybuilding. In the meantime, I was experimenthig with numerous treatments that I read on the internet. They were the following:

• Heat and ice packs  -  no noticeable effect
• Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory cream and patches (diclofenac)  -  the cream had no effect, the patches relieved the pain slightly, but it was only temporary  -  generally this is true to all NSAIDs, that's why  I didn't try other alternatives, I regard them pointless along the way of recovery.
• Glucosamine-chondroitine-MSM supplements  -  no effect at all, and it was very expensive
• Various products of Symphytum officinale - barely noticeable effect, no worthmessing around with it
• Massage  -  somewhat it helps, improving the circulation of the area
• Muscle relaxants, containing snake venom - impressive result at first, but fades away in some days, this treatment adresses the symptoms not the problem itself
• Schweden Bitter (or Swedish Bitter) - now this is a wonderful product, I wouldn't believe how good it is, if somebody else told me. Definitely worth a try! It's completely natural! The tincture can be used for embrocating, but you can buy a cream too, if you are the lazy type. Sadly I discovered this only a few months ago, because I found it myself, not read it on the Internet. I could find no historical data that anybody tried treating costo with this. Schweden Bitter is a complex mixture of herbs, having various effects like anti-inflammatory, muscle relaxant, immune boosting and so on, having effect on almost any kind of disease. In Hungary you can get it in any drug store without prescription. Google it if interested.

It always bothered me that I haven't been to a doctor, so after a while of no successful self treatment (about 5 months ago) I finally visited my GP. My expectations were correct: he did not help me at all, only dealt with me for about 5 minutes, ordered an X-ray of my chest, which, of course was negative (inflammations can not be indicated wizth X-ray, only structural deformations can.) He didn't even mention the name Costochondritis, told me to rest, stop bodybuilding and take painkillers. Absolutely waste of time.
A month ago, when I felt my condition slightly better, than 6 moths before, I couldnt resist and resumed training, I felt terrible losing weight and getting skinny again. Of course I avoided directly straining my costal cartilage. I have been training ever since, experimenting with exercise types. The main problem is, that you can not feel the pain when doing the exercise. Only half a day after. But I was successful narrowing down my exercises, so I think I'm not doing any damage to the area.
Let's see what kind of exercises you must avoid:

• Bech pressing - this is the most serious one I think, avoid it until you completely heal and even more...
• Abs workout  -  be careful with this one, I'm still experimenting with different types, sadly it strains the upper body
• Running  -  might seem groundless, but I tried numerous times and I always had bad results
• Squats  - the weight on your shoulder strains the whole rib cage and spine, I think this exercise is most probably accountable for my condition (I used 80 kgs of weight being only 62kgs myself) Use leg press instead!
• Be careful with exercises targeting your back - I'm still experimenting

In fact, the only exercises you can do without concern are the ones targeting your legs and arms. Any others are questionable. I intend to update later on this one.
My current condition is surely better than  6-8 moths ago, I've been experiencing a very slow, gradual recovery. The pain is very unpredictable, I have good and bad days. Now the pain never gets so severe that I can't do my everyday activities.
 Some final remarks I regard as imprtant:

• Stress is a bad factor - try to live without stress as much as possible
• Exercise  -  It's very important to move, stretch the area regularly, but only carefully no to cause more damage. Doing the opposite, like sitting hours at the computer will worsen the symptoms
• Patience  -  This  is not a temporary illness! You will have to wait and wait and wait a lot until it goes away...
• Rest  -  Try to avoid any movement that may strain the area!! Failing to do so will lengthen your suffering (see my case)
• Schweden Bitter  -  I think this is the ONE medical product that contributed to my recovery enormously

That's it for now, I intend to give updates through my recovery. Comments and questions are always welcome.