Like an ice cream headache, but not in my head!
September 27, 2014 1:36 AM   Subscribe

For about as long as I can recall (roughly 30ish years) I've had an odd recurring pain in my collarbone area. What might this be, and has anyone else experienced anything similar?

Basic info first: I'm a man, in his mid-30s. I'm generally relatively healthy: no blood pressure issues, no heart issues (low resting heart rate and BP, which I gather is a generally good thing), average weight and BMI, no previous injuries in the affected area, etc.

Buuuut, for almost my entire life, I have had a strange an recurring pain in my collarbone area. The only way I've ever been able to describe it is as an ice cream headache, but located very very deep inside my collarbone. It feels like an ice cream headache in that it is simultaneously sharp and dull, if that makes any sense. Most bizarrely, though, is the perceived location: it feels like it is miles deep within my collar. Like, my collarbone contains an expansive geography of nerves, and this pain is on the other side of the earth, much much further from the surface and core of my body than is at all possible. It also does not feel like any bone pain I've ever had (relatively minor neck fracture several years ago, broken arms/wrists as a kid, broken jaw several years ago, broken ribs, etc.), but does also not feel like normal internal organ-y pain or surface skin pain.

This comes on intermittently, say maybe once or twice in a 2 month period, sometimes more sometimes less. It usually only sticks around for a few minutes, and can be somewhat alleviated by shifting around awkwardly, but that only provides minor relief. It's never horribly painful, just uncomfortable and unpleasant.

I've made efforts to explain it to doctors, mostly in passing as it's never felt like anything that warranted a trip to a medical facility (still doesn't, FWIW, I just realized I'd never considered bringing it to the hive mind).

Has anyone experienced anything similar, or have any thoughts about what this sort of thing might be? It doesn't worry me at all, but it's quite strange and I'm curious!
posted by still bill to Health & Fitness (6 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Massage therapist here. Although I've never heard this exact description from anyone before, the weirdness of the sensation makes me think nerve pain. Perhaps thoracic outlet syndrome?

Also, you may have injured it without realizing it, maybe when you were very little, and/or it could be a repetitive stress injury that you continue contributing to by your posture/habitual movement patterns.

Have you noticed what you tend to be doing when it comes on? If not, you could write down each time what you've been doing, and then see if there's a pattern over time. Think about your posture and movements and if they have differed from the norm. Perhaps you slept in an odd position? Sat differently? Exercised differently/more?
posted by mysterious_stranger at 1:49 AM on September 27, 2014 [1 favorite]


My collarbone was broken during birth, and (though it healed fine) I used to get this pain, maybe up to age 19?
posted by slidell at 8:17 AM on September 27, 2014


I have no idea what this is, but I get it too. It's been happening every once in awhile for as long as I can remember. When I'm feeling that pain, it gets worse when I take a deep breath. It usually only lasts a few minutes, then goes away. I've always wondered what it was, and I hope someone here knows what's going on.
posted by Weeping_angel at 8:41 AM on September 27, 2014


I get pain like that when my Vitamin D is low. Easy to have a doc check that out.
posted by kathrynm at 8:55 AM on September 27, 2014


Response by poster: Weeping_angel: YES! Mine is also impacted by a deep breath. It amps up the weirdness in a dull way when I exhale deeply during these things.

kathrynm: Hmmm...interesting! I don't know that there's much chance my vitamin D is off--I take a supplement that includes full dose of it--but it's definitely going in my weird dossier of info about this thing.

mysterious_stranger: I've not noticed anything resembling a pattern in about 15 years of looking for one. I do think, though, that your posture suggestion might be something; I don't have excellent posture. However, that's only been the case for ~15 years or so, so only about half the time I've experienced this. I'll try again, more mindfully, to look for a pattern.
posted by still bill at 10:02 AM on September 27, 2014


Precordial catch?
posted by caution live frogs at 9:33 PM on September 27, 2014


« Older They Had Me At "Helping Children" - Are They Legit...   |   Is this a normal thing to be charged for by an... Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.