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First aid for intercostal neuralgia.

Usually intercostal neuralgia requires the intervention of a neuropathologist, as it is associated with infringement of the intercostal nerves. But until the moment when it will be possible to visit a doctor, you can take several useful actions that alleviate the condition and make it possible to calmly visit a doctor for further treatment.

Intercostal neuralgia in its signs often resembles heart or pulmonary pain, which is especially worrying for a person who is trying to alleviate his well-being. But there are a number of features of the course of intercostal neuralgia that distinguish it from other diseases similar in symptoms, which is easy to understand for a medically uninformed person. How to distinguish pain in intercostal neuralgia from similar symptoms of other diseases. With intercostal neuralgia, there are symptoms, the nature of which can be misunderstood, which misleads a person:

With intercostal neuralgia, paroxysmal pain appears in the chest area, which can radiate to the arm, neck, under the shoulder blade, but unlike heart pain or pain in the lungs, neuralgic pain occurs only when moving, directly at the moment of coughing or at the moment of deep inspiration (movement of the chest), has an unstable and acute character (only at the moment of movement and is very painful), while with pain in the heart, the pain symptom is constant and dull aching, and with pain in the lungs, it can occur not at the moment of coughing or movement, but in peace and self.
With intercostal neuralgia, the pain is so precisely localized in a certain area of the chest that a person can accurately feel for the place of outgoing pain and even when pressed, intensify the pain symptom, but with heart pain, such a place cannot be precisely determined - it is not there (somewhere behind the sternum, where somewhere deep in the chest).
With intercostal neuralgia, coughing or deep breathing, or movement of the diaphragm will lead to an acute pain symptom, and with lung disease, coughing, deep breathing, and any movements in the chest area will not cause acute pain. With intercostal neuralgia, pain does not affect the entire chest area, while pain in the lungs or in the heart can be diffuse, unlimited by any specific area.

Intercostal neuralgia most often results from stagnation in the muscle corset in the chest area, low mobility of a person, sudden heavy lifting or a sharp heavy load on the muscles of the chest (turns and tilts of the torso without prior training and warming up the muscles).

Often intercostal neuralgia literally fetters the movement of a person, which does not allow him to turn his body, tilt, and sometimes does not even allow him to get out of bed. It is in such cases that first aid is required for intercostal neuralgia in order to restore the ability to move and get to the medical specialist's office.

First aid for intercostal neuralgia:

Stop painful types of movement (do not turn the torso, do not bend down, do not raise your arms, or even reduce the movement in the cervical region, do not take a deep breath - switch to shallow breathing).
It is easiest to lie at the time of an attack of intercostal neuralgia on a hard surface - it does not bend and does not allow the muscle corset to work - the muscles do not tense up, which can just participate in compression (compression) of nerve fibers.
The main salvation for intercostal neuralgia, which can alleviate the pain symptom, is a mustard plaster or pepper patch at the location of the pain symptom (feel for that place in the chest area or in the thoracic spine from the back and put a mustard plaster or pepper patch on this place). Muscles at the moment of heating relax, which will weaken the compression of the nerves and reduce the pain effect to a tolerable state. Prolonged warming up of the muscles in the area of development of the pain symptom can completely remove the symptoms of intercostal neuralgia.
To reduce the intensity of the pain symptom, ointments applied to the area identified by touch as the focus of pain, and also, even if it looks contradictory, help to massage the painful areas. Massage of certain painful areas is carried out at the moment when the body is at rest, and the pain symptom does not appear, but its focus is groped for sure. This place of compression is intensively massaged, which creates heat in the skin and muscle tissue in the affected area of the nerves, thus forcing the muscles in the focus of pain to relax and reduce the intensity of compression of the nerve fibers.
If it is not possible to apply an ointment, massage or warm up the place of nerve compression by all available methods (including heating pad, salt, hot water bottle), home-use painkillers are used - analgesics, anti-inflammatory or antispasmodics. These are short-term remedies for intercostal neuralgia in the case when several nerve fibers are involved in compression, and the pain becomes difficult to determine at the place of origin.

All methods of assistance with intercostal neuralgia at home are designed for short-term pain attacks, as well as in case of emergency assistance to restore motor functions and the ability to consult a doctor. There are cases of intercostal neuralgia that require long-term specific treatment to relieve pain, and hence a mandatory visit to a neurologist.