Chest pain for a year, new symptoms.

[t-top IROC-Z]

Medical History and General Information:
I am a 19 year old male, and I have been to the hospital before with atrial fibrillation. Since then, I have lived with chest pain about 85% of the time. I have recently revisited the doctors where I was prescribed metoprolol for extra heart beats. Initially, I was happy to see that this was the cardiologists only concern, but I am still getting chest pain regardless.

Symptoms:
Normally, my chest pain is dull and kind of nagging; however, I have had new chest pain that concerns me a little more. Lately, I have had pain that seems to be predominately in the left side of my chest(left pectoral muscle). It hurts upon swallowing a large amount of liquid or food. I don't mean to sound overly paranoid, but I can't help to envision a tumor because it is in one specific area the whole time. This is probably irrational, but I can't help imagining it. Also, if I fill my lungs with a lot of air, I can also feel slight pain.

Other Important Symptoms to Note:
For the past 3 months or so, I have been able to pull up small amounts of clear congestion consistently throughout the day. Furthermore, I have had "tightness" in breathing. I don't have difficulties breathing, but the quality of breathing is diminished. Secondly, I have had headaches that are semi-consistent throughout the week. They're generally one sided(left or right side of the head), and they tend to cause pain in one eye(left or right eye). I will sometimes get dizziness as well. This does not seem to correlate with headaches. Finally, I will feel nauseated about 2 or 3 times a week at some point during the day. I have never thrown up from this, but I have gotten to the point where I needed to lay down to feel better.

I think it is a human tendency to fear the worst, so cancer has been on my mind a lot lately. I hope I can get some good responses to settle the anxiety! :dizzy:

Thanks a lot,

-Pat

 

[ARTmom]

I am going to give you a couple of possibilities for your symptoms which may sound weird, but try it...I have had similar problems.

First...the chest symptoms..
You might have acid-reflux. When I had this, at first, I thought I might be having heart attacks, the pain in my chest was that bad, and constant. I had similar difficulties with swallowing and with getting full lungfuls of air.

The acid-reflux could be brought on, at least partly by a wheat intolerance...try a lower carb diet for a few weeks and see if this helps. I know it sounds crazy.

The headaches you describe sound very similar to headaches I have gotten and still sometimes suffer from...cluster headaches.

We're a rare group, only 1 in a thousand get true cluster headaches. And there really isn't much you can do about it except to lie down in a dark and quiet room until they go away.

If they are cluster headaches...they may stop suddenly, and even for months at a time, but then come back.

I hope this has been somewhat helpful, it's worth a try.

 

[noiket]

I have gone through this for years with the pains and nothing wrong. It drives you nuts. So like as above stated about reflu which i have also just never connected the two.
I was eating a salad, the only thing I ate all day and 10 min later i got the pains o the left side and spasams it felt like. Thought I was gone. In my fear I remembered the salad I just ate Vinegar and oil and onions. I got up and took two gavaiscones (anti acids)chewed them up and sat there waiting to get worse or better. The pain stopped!!!!!! I couldn't believe it but I saw it with my own little head!!!!.
Now I take prilosect everday and no more chest pain like that. It is worth a try for peace of mind.
And i do have stents in my heart and got all kinds of pains but when they are fixed nothing. Just from the reflux or whatever is there, my GI doc says no open sores or anything just the acid doing that. Good luck.
Also get costocondrotis which is chest wall pain when you lift things or sometimes bothing at all it just burns and hurts and then goes away just like it came. Good luck, hope it's nothing more then reflux!!!!

 

[Adios]

Thanks for the responses guys,

Just another note, I am getting tender armpits which is worrying me now because that is symptomatic of Lymphoma. I will try anti-acids though.

Thanks again,

-Pat

 

[That Bald Guy again]

Let us know if the antacid helps.

sincerely, I went thru 2 months of constant chest pain before I finally got scared enough to see my doctor about it...and he told me it was reflux, and gave me Prevacid (which, at the time was RX but is now OTC)

As soon as that stuff kicked in and started working...no more chest pain.

Then, when I tried the Atkins diet for a while (very little carbs) I found I no longer even needed the Prevacid. I happened to mention it in passing to the clerk at the store where I was getting my Atkins vitamins..and he said I likely had a wheat allergy/intolerance, and that it was quite common, and could cause bad heartburn.

He also said it was likely that the reason I no longer had the acid problem was that I wasn't consuming much wheat/bread/carbs.

sure enough, when I came off Atkins, and started eating carbs again...there came the damned heartburn and reflux!!