I have been having pain in the upper right side of my back near my shoulder blade for years. I was trying massages but the pain would always return. About a year ago the pain begin to surface more consistently and I went to see my doctor. My neck would click when I’d rotate my head, I would feel tingling in my fingers as well. My doctor told me it was Fibromyalgia and gave me a prescription for Voltaren. When I took it for 30 days it was ok, but not very impeccability. I purchased a pressure pointer because it’s only pain on one central point in my back. When I stretch I feel it, and sometimes I try to move my shoulder blade around to touch it. One day I pressed my chest bone near my right breast to demonstrate to someone where the pain was in my back. I felt the pressure in my back relieve and my head stopped hurting and the tingle in my hands went away. I have to press my chest bone hard to get the relief, so as a result I make my chest bone sore. What could be so wrong that a part of my chest relieves pain in my back?

From what you are describing, I would lean towards an anatomic defect as opposed to the diagnosis of fibromyalgia. Fibromyalgia is a throwaway diagnosis that is often used to describe pain with no anatomic or neurologic explanation. It does not appear the pain in your back has been properly worked up.

From what you are describing with the pain in the upper back vaguely localized around the shoulder blade with pain relief upon pressure on the sternum, one possible explanation explanation that stands out is a cyst arising from a past shoulder injury that tracks along your shoulder blade. One of the most common shoulder injuries – a torn labrum – can often cause a glenoid-labral cyst that can track along the shoulder bone causing discomfort, pain, and limited shoulder mobility.

Now, your symptoms can be due to many causes but it does appear anatomical. Proper workup for your pain should include xray imaging of your back and spine to visualize boney deformities. If that is inconclusive, then MRI imaging of your upper back/shoulder should be performed to detect defects in the muscles, nerves, ligaments, or tendons.