Does this sound like angina?

[GMayne]

I'm a 20-year-old male, underweight (genetically, mostly) and out-of-shape, but relatively healthy otherwise. To make a long story short, in the past 3 months I have suffered from a number of symptoms due to anxiety. I saw my doctor, who performed a  physical and a number of blood tests (fasting lipid, metabolic panel, thyroid, etc.) Everything came back normal. Then I ended up in the ER a few weeks later due to a panic attack, where they performed a resting EKG and chest x-rays. Those came back normal as well.

Seeing as I haven't had any sort of official exercise program since high school, I decided to push myself to get back in shape. This last week I started up a cardiac program: My goal is to powerwalk the neighborhood at least 3 days a week, for 30 minutes each day. Sunday was the first day, which went absolutely fine. Yesterday, however, was a bit different. A few minutes into the walk I decided to test myself to see what my heart rate would be like if I went for a brief sprint. I sprinted for like 15-20 seconds and checked my heart rate (about 165 bpm). I then continued walking. A minute or two later, I started to get a deep chest pain that ran from the center of my chest up to my collarbone and the base of my neck. It followed me the rest of the way home (another 25 minutes or so) to varying degrees, stopping almost immediately when I walked in the door.

I know it's probably irrational, given the tests I've had and my age and lack of risk factors, but I am concerned. Does this sound like I have some sort of heart problem, or am I just out of shape?

[GMayne]

I should also note that I was burping a lot at the time, leading me to believe it might be something else.

[star queen]

It sounds like this is related to your panic attack.  Panic can cause the heart rate to raise and can give you chest pain like you are describing. The Thyroid plays a major role in anxiety and panic attacks. Since your Thyroid test was within normal limits, look to your diet.  Are you consuming iodine?  Iodine "feeds" the Thyroid and can help in reducing the occurance of anxiety and panic.  You would get it by eating cold water fish (not canned tuna or fishsticks), iodized table salt (not salty packaged foods), or from kelp or ocean veggies (about 220micrograms each day).  You can try adding iodine, but don't overeat it.  Too much is as bad as not enough.  If this doesn't help, you might want to consider talking to your doc about a med to help with the anxiety. You should also consider not pushing yourself so hard in your exercise plan. You didn't get "out of shape" overnight and won't get into shape overnight, either. When you overdid for the sprint the higher heart rate gave you alot of anxiety.  Although a higher heart rate is normal for that activity, try going slower and as your tolerance to exercise increases, increase the exercise.  Ask your doctor for a target heart rate that is "safe" for you and work with that.  Hope this helps.

[bobthetrainer]

if you had true chest pain, your physician will probably want you to undergo and graded exercise stress test (basically a treadmill test where they monitor your EKG and check you bp and pulse.  Ask them about this.