Severe Chest pain relieved by cold water

[DeBug]

I hope I got the right Forum for this...

I'm a 51 year old male and for the past 16 months I have had a strange pain happen to me at random times.  I call it a "severe flash pain" for lack of a better description. It is located in my chest behind the sternum and slightly to the right (not the heart side).  The pain area radiates about the size of a softball and happens very fast with no or little warning.  I have even been raised from sleep with this pain.  I get it at work, at home, pretty much any time of day.  I can’t seem to nail down what triggers the pain like meal time, too much stress, fatty foods, etc. The weird part is this: I get myself to cold water as fast as I can and drink it quickly.  Almost as fast as the pain arrived…it goes away.  The pain is severe and the rush to find cold water is in panic mode to be sure.  I even had to get a cup out of the trash once since there were none around during an attack!  I don’t think it’s a heart issue but I just don’t know.  I do drink coffee in the mornings, don’t exercise much as I should, but I don’t know if that’s it.

DeBug

[Bashir1717]

Hello everyone , iam facing the same issue since three years . Cold water or a small bite is the only solution till now , i had many tests including the akalasia thing and came back negative . After endoscopy i was diagonized with metaplasia and barret syndrome . Also iam facing some anxiety symptoms and not sure if that came before or after the chest pain , for the last 6 months a new thing happened to me , iam not able to burp and food is getting stuck in my throat soemtimes .
More tests this week , i will keep you posted .

[Bashir1717]

Hi All !
After two endoscopies and many scans dr couldnt find anything. Today i had a manometry and yes it is achalasia .
Still at the beginning this is why it doesn’t shows in the endoscopy .
2 solutions one of them is  
peroral endoscopic myotomy (POEM) for esophageal achalasia which is better than surgery as per the dr .
I will keep you posted .
Good luck

[yrivergirl]

I have had the same symptoms for about 14 years.  My pains usually start with a headache around my temples & ears radiating down my neck into my chest & back.  The pains are very severe.  It feels like my chest & back are so tight that they are caving into each other, including the head & neck pains.  It lasts anywhere from 15-20 minutes very severely.  My only relief was for me to Lie Down On My Back on a Hard Surface ie: the floor or ground until it is tolerable to move!  Sometimes it comes & goes all day, or for several days!  
Then I discovered that drinking water made the pains go away almost as fast as they had appeared!  Now I immediately reach for water.   I make sure to always  carry a bottle of water to sip during these times.

I wish that I knew the real reasons & causes.

[Cocobud1960]

Hi, I've had the same symptoms for five years now which only goes after drinking cold water.fed up of going to doctors because I can't get a proper diagnosis.feel like I'm losing my mind, don't know how much longer I can carry on.theres nothing worse than being in severe pain knowing that something isn't right only to be undiagnosed.i had an ECG and an endoscopy but nothing was found,I can't bring myself to keep bothering the doctor because I feel bad about taking up his valuable time.i feel helpless and depressed if only I had the money to go private I'm sure they would find out and give me a diagnosis.

[cbelkins]

I have had these exact same symptoms going on now for about the last 10 years. I have found that it's not so much the water (or any drink at any temperature) that relieves the pain as it is the tiny, almost imperceptible burp that follows the sip. There have been a few times when the attack came on when I could not get to anything to drink - like travelling on a train. In these situations I have found that forcing myself to burp by "swallowing air" will also make the attack go away, although taking a little drink of something seems to do it faster.

[MiracleOfYou]

Enjoying my 75th trip around the sun.  Have similar symptoms as posted by Debug in 2011 that I have had for past 10-15 yrs. Sudden onset of crushing chest pain usually while sleeping that feels like a prelude to heart attack. Also stumbled upon the cold water solution which provides almost immediate relief. Frequency of episodes has been fairly consistent over the years at 5-10 per year. Did mention the symptoms/solution to primary care physician who discounted it as something he never heard of.  
I have always thought this was and is a dehydration issue in my case. I'm a former marathoner (1978-1989) but recently walked the 2015 Boston marathon. I'm familiar with what dehydration can do with regard to my own personal fatigue as I commonly don't drink enough water for my level of activity. But, for me at least, it is hard not to conclude that the chest pains/cold water are just another extension of problems that dehydration can cause.  One sure, quick, and cheap way to determine proper hydration levels is to check the color of your urine.  If it is anything but clear or a slight tint of yellow you might need a drink of water.  
Hydration levels maybe a solution for some folks on this thread, but for those with other symptoms or perhaps more than just dehydration going on then finding that miracle of a medical professional may be the path to relief.  

[Klctx]

Wow. I thought I was alone in this. I sometimes get the same symptoms.  The pain is centered in my chest and if lasts for too long goes to my jaw as well. Almost the same symptoms of a heart attack but all I have to do is drink a glass of water, sometimes 2, then the pain goes almost immediately away and no further problems till weeks sometimes months later till the next episode. Sometimes when I drink wine I get the same thing but unfortunately drinking water does not help only rocking back and forth for 30 mins helps.
Really weird and doctors never have an answer and always check me out as healthy.

[luckyheartattack]

What iknowmorenow said is interesting and maybe a revelation to me. I began suffering this same thing about a year ago. Started like everyone else... Happened occasionally and sometimes more often. In  the beginning of September it began happening almost every morning. A couple weeks later it was happening in the morning and mid day. By the end of September it was happening in the morning, during the day and at night. Then one day I ended up drinking so much water trying to make it stop, I ended up throwing up the water. I felt different and not right that night, and asked my girlfriend to drive me to the emergency. I didn't make it. I had a massive heart attack. Complete shut down. They had to put me in an induced thermal coma to save my brain cells. Luckily I pulled through without any major damage. I was a heavy drinker and smoker. When I got out of the hospital, I continued to not drink or smoke. I still don't smoke. But the kidney specialist gave me the ok to enjoy a glass of wine with dinner if I chose to as long as I don't over drink or abuse alcohol. I drank 3 glasses of wine one night and the next morning I woke up running to the kitchen for a glass of cold water with that pain again. The reason I said what "iknowmorenow" said was interesting, is because I'm thinking that although I still don't know what causes the frantic rush for cold water, I am convinced that if it gets to a point where the condition gets worse and requires more water to get relief, it may be possible that excess water could cause a system overload that could lead to a heart attack. (what the nurse theorized) Also, the fact that I had no symptoms after getting out of the hospital, but as soon as I drink some alcohol, the symptom returns makes me wonder... hhmmm??
(btw.. I'm 52)

[iknowmorenow]

For 3 days, I had a slightly different pain (chest tightness behind my ribcage, almost cramping my breathing), and I did the same thing as you did -- drinking water seemed to make it disappear after a few minutes. Not drinking, or being even slightly thirsty would bring it on. I did this for 3 days, and then suffered a heart attack despite drinking water!!!

My heart attack was a STEMI (ST Elevated Myocardiac Infarct) caused by a 95% blockage in my proximal LAD artery. It needed an emergency stent placed in.

As I got to the emergency room, I was given asprin and nitroglycerin which relieved the problem. Soon after I peed 500 ml. (this was into a bottle, so that's how I know). Half an hour later, after the stent was in, I urinated another 600 ml. That's 1.1 litres in less than an hour -- that's how much excess water my body was holding down. I haven't felt as thirsty since the stent went in. :)

A nurse at the hospital theorised that the excess water increased my blood volume and mitigated the artery blockage. I had visited my GP the day before my attack but he had not given me a ECG. I visited him again today, and told him about this.