DOI: 10.36347/sjmcr.2019.v07i01.016

Pages: 51-54

Chest pain can have various causes, and such patients often expend much effort to identify the cause. Patients often first visit the cardiology department for detection of a possible heart disease. In the absence of cardiac dysfunction, they are referred to the gastroenterologists for abdominal and esophageal evaluation, and thereafter, to the pulmonologists. Eventually, they visit the pain clinic to evaluate musculoskeletal causes. Chest pain can be classified as visceral and somatic. The former three causes are visceral, while the last is somatic. Somatic pain originates from superficial musculoskeletal structures, such as bone, facet joint, muscles, etc., and the location of the pain can usually be identified. When we encounter patients with musculoskeletal chest pain, spinal causes are first considered. However, the cause may lie in the chest wall itself. If radiologic examinations do not reveal any abnormalities and physical examinations shows tenderness on palpation and limitation of movement, it should be considered that laxity of ligaments of the chest wall may underlie the symptoms; this condition can be treated by prolotherapy. We report the case of a woman who had suffered from chest pain for years after a car accident, who was successfully treated with prolotherapy.