I have had concerns about my heart health for a good while now... probably about 2 or 3 years. There was a year in my life where I decided to experiment with cocaine and exstacy (but could honestly count on 2 hands the times I did either) and that was about 4 years ago. I get pretty regular chest pains and arms pains that do scare me. I am 6'1", 32 yrs old, and weigh 350lbs.
Over the past year, I have seen my primary care physician and had an ekg done. It came back normal. He said it was likely acid reflux.
I then self-referred to a cardiologist who did an ekg which also came back normal. My concerns continued so he ordered a stress test which came back normal. A few months later, I visited again because of growing concern and he ordered a nuclear stress test. After that, he said that blood flow was good and the heart was strong. He feels that I just need to lose weight (understandably so).
We did go over things and he feels that it is musculo-skeletal pain. He also explained I likely was experiencing PVCs at one point after I went in with complaints that it feels like my heart was skipping beats. He said that it's typically nothing to be concerned with. Since then, they have gone away with the exception of about a week or two ago, when I experienced some PVC pain for a short while.
I do get pain usually in the left forearm or elbow area. Since last night, I have been experiencing pain in my upper left arm, almost in the tricep area (sort of hard to really pinpoint though). If it's not heart trouble, what the heck is it? I just want it to stop/go away so that I dont feel like I'm dying if I really am not.
Generally, I experience chest pain/discomfort with the arm pain. Sometimes its just the arm. I have also had pain in the left side of my jaw line as well as moments where it feels like I could be having a very light asthma attack.
I guess the next step would be to have a heart cath done, but I REALLY do not want that since I have read about many complications that can occur from having one done.
Also, I very likely suffer from sleep apnea. I need to schedule a sleep study sometime relatively soon... although I'd just rather get a CPAP and forego the study itself.
