Costo for short, is an inflammation of the cartilage in the chest and between the ribs. Basically your chest is made up of a lot of cartilage and soft connective tissue. People who have RA have high amounts of inflammation in there body and sometimes the inflammation moves to there chest, then they call it Costochondritis. Just as the Gastritis is an inflammation of the gastric muscles, or stomach lining. Basically anything that ends in "ITIS" is some sort of inflammation! Anyone can get costo or any other sort of "itis" but its seen a lot in people with RA as they already have lots of inflammation in there body. Basically, it just means that my RA is spreading through my entire body, instead of sticking with the typical hands, feet, knee's, elbow kind of thing. Its in my eyes, my chest and my stomach. So far, we haven't noticed any organ involvement yet however I get my blood checked every two weeks to keep on eye on several different levels, like my white blood cell count and my liver, which are usually the first two major complications of RA and the treatments of it!
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Taking it one day at a time.....
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Re: Costochondritis
