I want to get my lung issues figured out once and for all. What should I do?

I have had these issues on a very irregular basis for a least a few years now.

About once every few months, I’ll suddenly get this abrupt sensation of movement in my chest on the right side. It almost feels like my stomach growling, except way too high up. Then I’ll have a coughing fit – a wet cough – and then I’m fine.

Another thing that happens occasionally is I will get a pain in my right side/back. When this pain is present I also get this feeling of “crackling” when taking a deep breath. I can feel it myself, and if someone were to put their hand on my back while inhaling, they could feel it too. Unfortunately I’ve never managed to reproduce it at a doctor’s office. This pain and “crackling” feeling usually lasts at least a few days, and one time it lasted for several months.

During the months-long episode, I saw my PCP about it several times. She ordered a chest x-ray, which looked normal. My O2 saturation was normal. I felt pretty sure it was in my lungs, but I also asked for and received a urine test to rule out a kidney stone, because the location of the pain was not dissimilar to what I felt when I had a kidney stone in the past. That was clean. Eventually it just went away.

But I have it again now. On Thanksgiving day I had the movement/coughing fit thing and I’ve been dealing with the pain/crackling thing ever since then.

I don’t know what to do. I could go back to my PCP, but I don’t know what she’ll do now that she didn’t do then. This feels like it could potentially be something serious and I just want to know what’s going on. Do I need to see a pulmonologist? A second generalist for another opinion?

I know nobody here is going to have the answers, but what would you do as a next step if you were in my shoes?