Tsetse Attack!

No, not really, not tsetse flies; tietze.

Interestingly tsetses have existed mostly unchanged for over 30,000,000 years, but they are not the subject of this post. No, I forgot in my last post to mention that I have had a tietze attack. I suffer from Tietze's Syndrome, it is an inflammation of the cartilage where it joins to the ribs. It can strike either the front, where the ribs join in the centre of the chest, or the back, where they join to the spine, or the lower middle of the chest where the floating ribs end and lengths of cartilage then continue to the central join.

So this here cartilage join get inflamed and hurts. To be specific, they hurt when they move, such as getting up or down, or lying on them, or breathing if it is really bad. I have had a pain in my lower right chest for a couple of weeks but it didn't click since I haven't had an attack for over a year. But when it started to get bad it was obvious what it was, so up I got to have a mid-night snack then a couple of aspirin. Breakfast was followed by a couple of aspirin, and lunch was followed by a couple of aspirin. Aspirin, you see, is a very strong anti-inflammatory, brutal, but strong. And now it is mostly gone.

What causes it? Google it and you will get twenty different answers. It is a 'syndrome', which means no-one knows what causes it, just what the symptoms are. I tend to agree with the virus theory; I think it is like warts. Apparently the wart virus lives in all of us, but usually the body's defences keep it down, every now and then for unknown reasons you get a little outbreak of the virus on your skin and a wart appears. I find that milk thistle works really well, also I have had success with hypnosis - any hypnotic routine that includes a cleansing visualisation will clear up any warts that I might have. So I think that this tietze thing is a virus that once it is in you it can never be gotten rid of, only 'managed'. And I manage it by hitting it hard with aspirin whenever I become aware of an inflammation.

I had my first attack when I was in my mid thirties, but I have never had it so severe since because now I recognise it. So this one took a while for me to notice, but sometimes the inflammations go down on their own, so it is not until it hurts to an inconvenient degree, such as hurting when I lie on my side, that I know a) that it is tietze, and b) that I have to hit it with aspirin.

Remember to always eat before taking aspirin; otherwise it does bad things to your stomach lining.