Chest pain during activity

[nickt18]

Hey guys my name is Nick and I am 18years old.

I play handball about 5 days a week. Only the hands are used.
I have been playing for many years and have never had any problems. Sometimes I do get sore from playing too much.

Well this is my senior year in high school and I was studying for the SATS. I played almost everyday all summer but starting october I played on and off. Maybe once a week or every 10-12 days. I remember about a month ago I played for the first time in 12days and I had a hard time breathing right when I started playing. I noticed I was running out of breath much faster than I do in normal situations. However next time I played I was fine, no problems.

Here is where I need help:
Then I did not play for another 2weeks or so. Before I played i warmed really fast (usually I take longer) and began playing. Once again I was running out of breath faster. Towards the end of game (game is 21pts) I started getting some chest pain on the upper left side of my chest and my left side. The pain was mild and was a sort of stabbing or squeezing pain. Was not very painful. The pain would shoot for some seconds and go away. It was not contionious throughout the whole game. Would appear for some seconds and then go away. It was maybe level 4 out of 10. I did not have any other symptoms. And I also felt the pain when I would serve the ball. That would initiate it. After I served the pain would go away in a few seconds.

I went to a cardiologist about 3 months ago prior to playing this game and had an ECG done. Everythign 100% normal.

[nickt18]

Thanks alot im not really worried anymore :) Did some cardio in school today. The coach makes us do a bunch of sets of jumping jacks, high knees, butt kicks, modified jumping jacks, jogging, jumpimg, etc all in 5min then soon we will be up to 9min. I havent even done cardio for 2weeks because I was a bit paranoid but I did it easily, had a bit of shortness of breath buts thats norm for me I only started cardio this semsester.

[LukeL]

Like above I have no medical traning but most heart conditions in someone your age group you are born with so will always be there. It would be very rare for a disease to be undetected 3 months ago and suddenly be apparent now. Usually these things take years to form and a couple of months will not matter.

If you are still concerned you can ask your doctor about cardiomyopathies and electrophysicological conditions, but most heart problems will also cause diziness, near fainting, fainting, palpitations and other such symptoms. And with a negative family history it also makes it very rare. (even with heart condtions in your age group being rare)

Also when you first notice you are out of breath, this might makes things worse and you feel that you are not gettting enough oxygen when you actually are.

I would browse the heart forums and check the archives and see if anyone has your symptoms and see what the doctor said.

But don't be afraid to discuss this with your doctor and don't allow him to dismiss it without giving you an explination why. I find too often doctors don't want to answer concerns of patients or take their research seriously. '

But all things point to stress as you going through a major change in life.

[LukeL]

With a Normal Echo this rules out the vast majority of cardiological symptoms and conditions in someone your age. There are very rare conditions that an Echo will miss but an EKG will pick them up almost all of the time.

So if you are still concerned about your heart you may want to wear a holter monitor or an event monitor. These record your heart rhythm over a period of time. (Holter 24-48 hours) and an event monitor over a month or more. With the event monitor when you feel the symptoms you press a button and the info is recorder and sent to your doctor.

But the odds of any major heart condition without family history is low and if a doctor has given you an all clear try to move on.

Of course I am not a doctor and you should discuss this with him further or try to post in the heart forum (be warned though that within 10 minutes of allowing posts for the day its filled up)

To me it sounds like a combiation of stress and muscle strain from reptitive motions.

[nickt18]

I had the EKG about 3 months ago and the echo a year ago.

Can anything develop within 3 months?

Also forgot to mention prior to playing that game, the day before I had the SATS (4hrs -- my brain was fried) plus I have been up for a total of 18hrs and had 8-9hrs of sleep. Maybe I was still tired from the day before and just overexerted myself or something. I called my pediatric and he said "muscle neurology" or something like that.

My mom, dad or their parents do not have any heart problems that I know of. My dads father is 80 right n ow and his mother passed away when she was 72. My mothers parents are younger and still alive.

[nickt18]

The reason for the cardiologist visit was because I had some chest pains during summer. These were shooting pains and would shoot for about a second and go away. I had them on both sides but mostly on the left. Very mild 2/10. Cardiologist said that this is from anxiety and thousands of teenagers get them and everything is perfectly normal. This was my 2nd visit to this doctor because I had same problem a year ago and that time he did echocardiogram and ECG. Reason for 2nd visit was that I was a paranoid. But I do not get these shooting pains now. They come and go and I mostly do not get them at all.