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Chest Pain and Other Weird Symptoms

My Symptoms:
I am 21 years old, 5’5” and 125lbs. I have always been healthy, eat well and exercise regularly. But the past few months I have had some weird physical symptoms happen to me.
My boyfriend and I were in Thailand around New Years Eve this year. During the last week of our trip we got food poisoning. (This was about Jan 12, 2011) That’s when it all started. Ever since then I have had diarrhea and it feels like something is stuck in my throat. It also made me very gassy and bloated.
About a month after returning I went to my doctor and got a stool sample which came back normal. He recommended taking fibre supplements for my diarrhea, but didn’t know what was wrong with my throat..everything looked normal. The fibre helped calm my system for about a week but then the diarrhea came back and has been constant ever since.
Sometime around mid February I started to get chest pains. The first two days it was only on the left side of my chest, and the second night my left arm started going numb so I went to the emergency at the hospital. They did an ECG, and tested for blood clots in my lungs and checked for some enzymes (liver, kidney etc). Everything looked normal and the doctor told me it was probably just muscle pains.
My chest pain continued. The day after I went to the hospital I started getting pains in the middle and right side of my chest as well. However, it was never on both sides at once. My right arm also occasionally went numb. Now both arms do from time to time. Nothing seems to trigger my chest pain, or relieve it so I disagree that it is a muscular problem, but I also have no idea what else it could be. It feels like sharp stabbing pains and occurs very randomly. I have also since felt like I have a cramp in the left side of my chest where my heart is. It only lasts a few seconds and nothing bad seems to come of it.
So with my diarrhea and chest pain continuing on, I now started occasionally losing my breath. It doesn’t feel like anything is wrong with my lungs, but something is restricting my airway. This may have happened two to four times a month. I noticed that when it happens I get this weird feeling in my stomach before. I think it may be caused by acid reflux/GERD but not sure. That would also explain the feeling of something being stuck in my throat.
About a week after my chest pain started I got dizzy, and the feeling lasted for well over a week. On the first night of my dizzy spell I was trying to go to sleep and it felt like my body started floating. It felt like my entire body had a lessened sensation of touch for a day and a half. I thought it may have been a flu but with everything else that was going on I wasn’t too sure.
A few weeks later I was out with a few friends and the entire left side of my face went numb, making it hard to articulate words and swallow. This only lasted a minute or two so I didn’t follow up on it.
Six weeks after my chest pain started it suddenly got worse. In addition to the sharp stabbing pains I also was getting a burning aching pain on both sides, but worse on the right. And it was much more constant. The aching seemed to be worse when I was sitting or laying down, being inactive. I went to my family doctor and he did another ECG and a chest x-ray. Everything looked normal again. He suggested that it was chest wall pain and prescribed me an anti-inflammatory. I had an allergic reaction to it so only took two doses but it immediately took away the aching feeling but did nothing for the stabbing pains. I didn’t take anything else for it after that.
One night the following week I was laying in bed trying to sleep and I got a weird feeling in my left lung. I could feel a cooling sensation from my left nostril, down my throat, through my left lung and down into my stomach. It also felt like my lung could take in endless air but it wasn’t absorbing anything. This made me light headed as I couldn’t take any deep breathes. I woke up that night short of breath. It was different than when I lost my breath before. It was like I was gasping for air. The feeling in my left lung lasted till the next evening.
A week later I woke up two nights in a row (several times each night) because I lost my breath. The feeling only lasted about 5 or 6 breaths before I could breathe normally. And my left lung was back to feeling normal. My doctor listened to my lungs and said that they sounded normal.
Later that same week I was working out and noticed that it made my chest pain worse and that I had a bit of difficulty breathing during exercise. This had not happened before. In fact my chest had never hurt before while I was exercising. I’m not sure if the chest pain was due to exercise or just a coincidence that time.
I don’t know if any of my symptoms are related, or if anything is worth worrying about. My doctor said that because I am small and young it may just be because of changes my body is going through. Any insight would be greatly appreciated.
Bethany
2 Responses
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Avatar universal
Hey,
No relief. Now I'm getting really bad heart palpitations. Mostly when I'm laying down to sleep or just waking up but also sometimes throughout the day. And my pulse is very strong, like if I lean up against a wall I can feel a pulse in my shoulder or if my heads resting on my hand I can feel it there too. I have an appointment with a cardiologist next week so I'll see what he has to say about it.

Helpful - 0
Avatar universal
Hi, I have been having similar symptoms. How are you holding up? Have you gotten any relief from anything?
Helpful - 0
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