Posts by Symptomsky

Chest pain and back pain can be truly limiting to your quality of life. They can ruin your sleep and your mood. And if I were to open my chest like this, you would notice that there are many bones creating the chest wall. So it’s no surprise that chest pain and back pain are often caused by muscular and skeletal conditions.

Chest pain and back pain can be truly limiting to your quality of life.

They can ruin your sleep and your mood. And if I were to open my chest like this, you would notice that there are many bones creating the chest wall. So it’s no surprise that chest pain and back pain are often caused by muscular and skeletal conditions.

These musculoskeletal causes of chest pain and back pain are usually not deadly. However, a somewhat rare condition called aortic dissection can cause chest pain and back pain, and this condition is dangerous and deadly. There are some other causes of chest pain and back pain as well, so let’s learn about these conditions. And then, let’s learn about dangerous signs that indicate that the patient indeed suffers from aortic dissection.

This medical video about chest pain and back pain with illustrations and drawings was created using Anatomsky.com. So if you’re a medical doctor or a student and you want to make a similar video, then you can use that website. But now back to aortic dissection.

Now, if I were to open my chest again, and this time remove my lungs and other organs, you would be able to see the aorta, the largest artery of the human body. Right here, leaving the heart is the ascending part of the aorta, then the aortic arch, and then the descending part of the aorta. In a cross section like this, we can see that aorta has a very thick wall and a large lumen to facilitate the blood flow to all the important organs such as the brain over here through the carotid arteries. The aortic wall consists of three layers, the innermost layer, the intima, and the middle layer called the media. The media consists of smooth muscle tissue, and the outermost layer, adventitia, is a connective tissue layer. An elevated blood pressure in the aorta can cause a tear of the intima, the innermost layer of the aortic wall. Ultimately, this allows the blood from the lumen to enter and rip media apart, creating a false lumen.

This tear of the intima and blood entering the media is what we define as aortic dissection. It usually has a sudden onset with chest pain and back pain, and it is very deadly. Aortic dissection must not always cause chest pain and back pain acutely and suddenly. Sometimes, it can go on for months and possibly even years. In Stanford type A aortic dissection, there is dissection present in the ascending and the descending part or only the ascending part of the aorta. In this type of aortic dissection, about half of the patients die within three days.

However, in Stanford type B aortic dissection, there is a dissection present in the descending part of the aorta only and in this case, only about 10% of the patients die within a month. A weakening of the aortic wall must not always cause a tear right away, but instead it can cause aorta to become dilated and this dilated aorta can then rupture or cause a dissection in the aortic wall. Now, before we learn how to recognize these common causes of chest pain, one can always do this about chest pain or simply share this video so that people with chest pain can learn that the heart and heart’s blood vessels can also be a cause of chest pain and back pain as well.

The heart is a muscle and it has to pump a lot of blood through the aorta, but if we look closely over here, we can see that there are arteries leaving aorta in order to supply the heart with fresh oxygenated blood in order to function properly. If one of those arteries has a stenosis, it can cause heart not to function properly because it doesn’t get enough of blood.

What helps us distinguish this condition, the coronary artery disease, from other conditions explained here, is that this chest pain produced by a coronary artery stenosis can radiate into the neck, back and arms. These symptoms usually happen when we are physically or emotionally stressed because heart has to pump more blood into our muscles and brain in such situations.

Coronary artery disease is a chronic condition. However, coronary artery disease comes with blood clots in the coronary arteries, and if a blood clot breaks free, it can completely block the artery and then cause death of the myocardium tissue of the heart. This is known as myocardial infarction. Both coronary artery disease and myocardial infarction can cause chest pain and back pain and it can be hard to distinguish one from another, but these conditions are usually easy to distinguish from pneumonia, that is an inflammation of the lungs. Chest pain caused by pneumonia, that is the inflammation of the lungs, is usually accompanied with fever and cough.

And musculoskeletal conditions often present with pain that can be caused by simply palpating the painful area. And last but not least the most common cause of chest pain, GERD. Right next to the aorta we can see the esophagus. The food goes through the esophagus to enter the stomach. However, if the acid from the stomach enters the esophagus, we refer to that as gastroesophageal reflux disease.

Some of these conditions such as myocardial infarction and aortic dissection can be extremely dangerous and there are dangerous signs that we should identify with chest pain or back pain.

Dangerous signs to recognize with chest pain and back pain are lightheadedness and feeling dizzy, as well as syncope which is defined as a short loss of consciousness.

Furthermore, sweating should always be recognized and a possible shortness of breath. In conditions such as myocardial infarction and aortic dissection, doctor could also notice unequal blood pressure in arms as well as neurological symptoms such as paresthesia or paralysis. Maybe the most important thing about chest pain and back pain is to be properly informed and you can do that here, symptomsky.com. But if you’re a medical doctor or a student and you want to make a medical video like this one, then go to anatomsky.com.

Clavicle fracture can have different complications.

For example, if a clavicle fracture is intraarticular, it means that it involves joint surfaces. It can cause inflammation of the joint itself and then the destruction of the joint. This can lead to pain. But ultimately, if close nerves and arteries are damaged, this can lead to tingling. And also pain and numbness.

Clavicle fracture should also be treated surgically if there is a possibility or a danger that a nearby nerve or an artery might be damaged.

Remember when we said that this is the distal third of the clavicle? Well, if a fracture happens here and it is displaced, well, then that is an indication for a surgery.

Furthermore, after a fracture, clavicle can be shorter. And if it’s shorter, more than 2.5 centimeters. Well, a surgery might be considered.

To avoid complications of a clavicle fracture. We might have to perform a surgery. Here we can see a list of indications for a surgical treatment of clavicle fracture.

So the first indication for a surgery of clavicle fracture in the list is if a bone is broken into multiple pieces.

The second is an open type of fracture, meaning that a fragment or a part of the clavicle protrudes and penetrates the skin. And that’s why it’s called an open type of fracture.