Chest Pains??? - Heart Disorders Message Board

immortal19 · 05-30-2005, 09:43 PM

Hello I am 21 years old, I had panic/anxiety disorder for 3 years...mostly subsided now.
For the past 4 months now I have had chronic chest pains that would extend from left to center to right sides radomly, sometimes in my arms and in my back and left shoulder.
I have been to the ER and doctor multiple times and they have taken an ekg and xray and say they do not see anything wrong with my heart.
This is confusing me, I know it's not anxiety because i have had worst anxiety before and a benzo dosen't do anything, I have taken anti-acids, advil, and anything else that could help with the pain but to no help. One thing that did seem to help (but of course it could have just gone away since it comes and goes) was toradol.
What is going on with my chest? I'm geussing and hoping that since i have had this for 4 months that it isn't a heart problem cause i would be dead by now (if i can be proven wrong)
So, I have elliminated Gas, heartburn, broken rib, anxiety...well pretty much everything i can think of that could be causing this.
What is it and what else can i do to elliminate the possiblity that this isn't anything to do with my heart?
I'm too young to die

Lenin · 05-31-2005, 06:44 AM

RUN.

If pain gets worse with as long a run as you can manage and you get out of breath it may well be your heart.
If on the other hand the pain doesn't get worse, heart involvement isn't likey. What a RUN accomplishes is a poor man's stress test.

My BEST guess (but still a guess) is a nerve pinch in your thoracic spine that radiates around your trunk. If you can fashion any kind of neck traction, that would be ideal.

immortal19 · 06-03-2005, 05:27 PM

Ok, when my chest was hurting i took a run like you said until i couldn't run anymore (out of shape so didn't last long) but anyways the pain didn't get worse just stayed the same, and if i run with no pain it dosen't bring it on either.
So what else could this be (4 months of this)?
Also what is a neck traction?

happybunny · 06-04-2005, 04:42 AM

Could be musculo-skeletal. Might be good idea to see an osteopath as they could check out whether it comes from a neck problem or might be to do with any joints/muscles in that area - upper back, ribs etc. or even from the joints where ribs meet breastbone.

They can help sort out soft tissue problems as well as joints. There may be a lot of very tight muscles in your neck/upper back that have built up due to tension and anxiety. This can give rise to a lot of pain in the upper body and it could have been building up for some time, even over several years. Once this situation has arisen then muscle imbalance can spread the problem to surrounding areas, as one set of muscles tries to compensate for another set of muscles not working well. An osteopath would be able to feel this and would be able to massage and knead it to help the muscles unknot. Make sure the osteopath is qualified/registered (I'm in UK so don't know how it works if you are USA) and then you can have confidence that they will be completely safe. I have found that they are far better than doctors for some musculo-skeletal things.

Or a physiotherapist if you preferred, although from my experience I would not really recommend them.

By the way, if needed, an osteopath could apply traction to the neck - that just means pulling it gently to elongate the neck and relieve any pressure on nerves.