OK where to start, about five years ago I started to have mild pain more like pressure in my left side of my rib cage it made it hard to sleep breath sit in a car. Dr said it might be torn cartilage he gave me some meds and after a month or so it did get better. But it comes back all the time and last for days weeks even months. I did find a doctor who finally gave me steroid shot and that helped for about six months. Then I went back for another shot but the shot did not seem to work the pain around my rib was burning the skin looked red and was hot and then all these lumps showed up. So I went back a week later an showed the DR he said the lumps were lipomas and was unrelated to getting the shot. He removed one that was the size of marble and 15 seed size lipomas then thw pain went away. My problem now is it's been a year and I have a lot more lipomas and my ribs are hurting badly again. I know he said the lipomas were unrelated to the shot but it seems strange they grew over night after I got the shot... Does anyone have this rib pain (I did not have any accident) and should I get another shot? And if the shot did not cause the lipomas than why do I have them and how do you get them to stop spreading?

I was diagnosed a few years back with idiopathic intercostal neuralgia (idiopathic means that haven't a clue about what caused it, intercostal means between the ribs, and neuralgia means pain along the nerve). It evolved sometime after that to "chronic thoracic pain", and I was taking mostly pain killers and antiinflammatories to control it, and then it suddenly stopped and I've been better ever since, without any real treatment.

The lipomas may not be related to the shot, but are you absolutely positive they're lipomas? If you observed them immediately after having gotten the shot, that they may be indeed related to the shot, they could be hematomas - but they wouldn't reoccur spontaneously after so long, and without having gotten another shot.

How many doctors did you see about this?