Chest pain, 24 yr old female. Please help

[lwillia1]

I will make this as short as possible. I have had chest pain off and on for 6 months. I've had about half a dozen EKGs and I was sent to a cardiologist who said it was rare for me to have heart disease at my age, but decided to do a stress echo and 48-hour holter to make sure, this was about 3 months ago. Both came back normal. The chest pain went away for about 2 months and has since comeback much stronger than before. I feel it on my left side of my chest and in the center. I do have a lot of neck pain that extends down my back and into my jaw as well and have been told that this can contribute to chest pain. I'm honestly running out of ideas. I had a follow up with my cardiologist and he said that he is confident that there is nothing wrong with my heart, but I can't help worrying about it. My father had a bypass at 40 and my grandmother had a quad-bypass as well. I had my cholesterol checked and it was normal, but my triglycerides were 239. This is also something that the cardiologist was not too worried about. Should I still be worried or just leave it alone? SHould I ask for more tests? I'm really at a loss and any input would be greatly appreciated.

[ed34]

well heart disease runs in my family and my cardiologist said I should have my 15 year
old son tested for signs next year when he is 16. Catching heart disease early is better
because you can at least take the appropriate steps to control it. You don't mention
anything about your blood pressure, is it normal? I am also curious about the pains
vanishing for two months, did the weather become warmer or anything? I only ask
because cold air makes angina worse. The discomforts you mention regarding jaw and
neck are definitely symptoms felt by a huge number of angina sufferers. It is good that
your cholesterol is low but this doesn't mean heart disease is out of the question.
EKG's do not show up problems with heart disease unless it is really severe. In fact
most seem to show a healthy heart. The holter is just the same thing but giving a
recorded trace over a given period of time, usually 24-48 hours.
What you need to look at are the other symptoms associated with heart disease. At
the age of 24 I assume you are quite fit. If you go for a 30 minute wallk or a small
run, does the chest pain get worse and do you feel short of breath. If so, do these
problems subside within two minutes if you stop and stand still.
The way to look at this is that you get one chance at life. You could ask the cardiologist
to do a CT scan or angiogram because of your hereditary risk factor. If you don't get
the symptoms I spoke of when exerting yourself then I would doubt if you have heart
disease because the symptoms should worsen, especially if you experience chest
pains at rest. If I was in your shoes and the symptoms do get worse when exercising,
I would demand a scan. If the symptoms do not get worse when exercising, I would
probably forget about it and see how I feel in about 6 months time.