Intercostal Neuralgia

The pain comes like a band. It draws along the ribs, often on one side, sometimes on both, and lays itself like a tight belt around the chest. It shoots in when you breathe deeply. It sharpens when you laugh, cough, turn. Sometimes it burns, sometimes it stabs, sometimes it feels like an electric shock running between two ribs. Medicine calls it intercostal neuralgia — an irritation of the nerves that run between the ribs. The causes can be varied: tense musculature, a pinched nerve, a resolved shingles infection, an injury, poor posture.

That is the explanation on the physical level. And it is correct. But it does not answer the question you may be asking yourself inwardly: Why now? Why precisely here? Why this pain that literally takes your breath away?