Nutrition Health Chat: Tuesday, Dec. 8th, 5-6 PM Eastern. Learn how vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients affect your health. Free live Q&A. Join us!
Member Comments are provided by individuals and reflect their personal opinions only. Under NO circumstances should you act on any advice or opinion posted in this forum. ALWAYS check with your personal physician before taking any action regarding your health! MedHelp International and our partners, sponsors and affiliates have no obligation to monitor any comments posted on this site, or the content and/or accuracy of such exchanges. MedHelp International does not endorse the views of any user.
Heart Disease (Expert Forum)
Chest Pain
This forum is for questions and support regarding heart issues such as: Angina, Angioplasty, Arrhythmia, Bypass Surgery, Cardiomyopathy, Coronary Artery Disease, Defibrillator, Heart Attack, Heart Disease, High Blood Pressure, Mitral Valve Prolapse, Pacemaker, PAD, Stenosis, Stress Tests.
Chest Pain
by chad, Sep 09, 1999 12:00AM
Hello, I am a 21 year old male. When I was 17 I went to the er with a racing heart over 200bpm. I had been using drugs (cocaine and marijuana)The doctors treated me and told me I would be fine. Since then I have not had any drugs, alcohol, nicotien, or caffiene. Soon after this incident I suffered from what I believe were panic attacks.. My heart would speed way up and I would start sweating. A little later and still today I started having pain in my left chest area. This pain is usually in different areas of my chest but always on the left side. Sometimes its right at the bottom of my rib cage, or in my back, neck, left arm, or right where my heart is. Sometimes its a sharp stabbing pain other times its a dull aching pain. When its where my heart is its a sharp pain usually, the rest are usually dull pains like the muscles are real tired. The pain will last for days then go away for a while. I also have what feels like are little flutters and other times my heart feels like it skips a beat then the next beat is a hard beat. These also come and go as they please. Since all of these started, I have had many doctor visits, a few ekgs, an echocardiogram, a couple of chest X-Rays, a stress test, and bloodwork. All of these turned up fine.So my questions are:
1. Could the drugs have damaged something that these doctors and tests have missed?
2. Since it has been 3 years since the majority of these tests were done and I still have these problems, should I have them done again?
3. Could all of this be caused by me worrying that something is wrong with my heart?
1. Could the drugs have damaged something that these doctors and tests have missed?
2. Since it has been 3 years since the majority of these tests were done and I still have these problems, should I have them done again?
3. Could all of this be caused by me worrying that something is wrong with my heart?
Doctor's Answer
by CCF CARDIO MD - DLB, Sep 09, 1999 12:00AM
Any damage the drugs did would have occurred at the time you used them. There should not be any adverse effect showing up now from your prior use - at least nothing the tests would have missed. I doubt repeating the tests would really show anything different. It is quite possible that all your worrying is in fact causing your symptoms. I think you should go in to your doctor for another check-up, mostly for reassurance. It might be worthwhile to have a Holter monitor to see if an arrhythmia is causing the fluttering feeling.
