Dear Alice,
I have been experiencing a similar type of chest pain--mine is on the right side. The pain always radiates from the same point in my chest, but seems connected to pain in my upper back, ribs and right breast. The pain gets worse with stress, and if I overdo with caffeine, it seems to affect my esophagus. I also sometimes am experiencing this burning sensation, but not every day. Even though my doctor has mentioned that maybe it is heartburn, I can't help wondering if it is partially from adhesions from a triple lumen I had inserted into my chest in 1991. (I had had two major abdominal surgeries and had to be fed by triple lumen--I had one on each side for each of my two surgeries.) To me, it makes sense that adhesions in the chest area could be causing nerve pain, and even esophageal pain. Maybe even adhesions in the abdomen could cause a sort of reflux which could be causing some of this. I was interested to see that you mentioned the gall bladder/liver area. I have a place that gets a little knotted up, or partially blocked, right around the gall bladder/liver area, especially upon eating certain things like popcorn. Also, check out articles on costochondritis--If you are 30-50, this might be contributing to some of this pain also. I hope yours goes away soon--I am interested,too, to find out if this could be adhesion pain.
Sincerely,
-- Julie