Lower Left Rib Pain During Pregnancy: Causes & Relief

Question
Hi. Ever since I got pregnant 4.5 months ago, i've had severe pain in my lower left rib that extented to the middle of my back. The pain has gotten better over the last month but it's changed. I now have a constant burning sensation and numbness on the left side of my ribs and i also have an unusually strong pulse immediately below the rib cage. My 12 week U/S showed a healthy fetus so I don't believe it's related but I am still concerned. My doctor keeps dismissing the issue and says that it's part of normal pregnancy growing pains. Somehow I don't believe that! Pls help.

Answer
For some reason you have some nerve irritation to the area... burning pain like that is nerve root irritation.... it can be at the spinal cord level or further out along the nerve.

Unfortunately, there is very little you can do except for local treatments at this time.  One idea would be to ask your OB if you can use zostrix cream or voltaren cream on the area.  Zostrix is like pepper spray cream.... it burns the first couple times going on but after that will deplete that area of nerve  chemicals that cause pain... you have to put it on 4 times a day which is a pain.

Voltaren is a motrin type medicine that may also give some local comfort and you absorb so little of it that they may be OK.  

But for further testing/imaging/treatment trials, you will have to wait until after pregnancy unfortunately.