RSI or Vascular Problem?

Hi all,

I am anxious over some regularly occurring pain I have experienced for the past several months.  In January, I performed echo and stress tests which came up clean, and had a number of EKGs done with no problems detected.  I am worried that something was missed.

I am a 21 year old male who rarely experienced health problems until recently; my diet and exercise habits are admittedly somewhat poor (low fruit and vegetable intake), and I am somewhat overweight (5'5" 160lbs).  However, I do not drink soda or anything else with caffeine.

History: My health took a turn for the worse in my senior year of college.  I went to the emergency room twice for frightening heart palpitations and chest pain, with the above results; I was even briefly prescribed Xanax.  Trusting that this was all likely stress related, I  ignored regular aching in my left arm, underarm, and breast area for several months.  During this time, I also experienced nausea and stomach pain issues which Nexium seemed to clear up, and developed recurring epidydimitis, which I have been on medication for twice.

Symptoms: I am worried because my pains have continued and recently worsened.  It is worst in my upper arm region and left breast, sometimes radiating to my shoulder, underarm and wrist.  I was told by health services at school that it may have been related to computer use, but the amount of use doesn't seem to affect it - I am currently experiencing the ache more persistently and painfully than before, and my computer use has decreased somewhat.

I have never had pain in the center of my chest, but I have occasionally experienced fluctuations in my heartrate.  The pain in my left breast varies from an ache similar to my arm pain to a repeating pinching sensation, which usually lasts for 10 to 30 seconds.  Since it's now late July, all of this has gone on for some time.

The pain is not severe; I would definitely not describe it as the worst I've ever felt.  It is a continuous ache that I find perturbing more for where it is and how persistent it has been than its intensity.

I would appreciate any opinions on what might be bothering me.

[toby45]

I posted this a few weeks/mt ago in response to someone who was having similar chest pain symptoms....here's my story...apologies to those who have seen it before, but hope it helps give some perspective.

Please stay proactive and be persistent - my "pinched nerve" diagnosis was angina that led to 3 heart attacks less than 3 weeks later. Hearing your docs say it could be due to keyboarding sounds fishy to me...
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The description of your pain is eerily similar to the pain I had during my acute MI earlier this year (Jan 08)

Not that you're having angina or any heart related probs, but here's what I went through:

I was jolted out of bed at 1.30 am and found myself in pain. The pain I described was a lump of pain or a ball of pain to the left and above my left nipple. My left tricep hurt from shoulder to elbow. And I had a ball or lump of pain in the palm of my left hand. I also had a dull pain from my clavicle to my molar on the left side.

The pain lasted about 30 mins and then subsided. It recurred an hour later at 2.30 am. This time it lasted about 45 mins and I had to go to the toilet...then the pain subsided, though it was exactly the same 4 places described above.

At 9.30 am the pain came back...starting dull and just increasing from a "soft" discomfort to a "hard" pain. Same 4 places. Decided to go to the hospital and they said I was having an acute MI, with BP at 170/110.

Scary thing is that I had no crushing chest pain, no radiating pain down the arm, no fast heart rate - in fact I was very very calm. There was also no breathlessness or tingling or any of the classic symptoms.

I had been checked about a month earlier - including a stress test - with a clean bill of health, and only slightly decreased HDL's. At the time of my heart attack overall cholesterol was 165, Tri's were 220, LDL was 71, HDL was 25. I was not on any meds and my BP was 130/88

Had to have emergency angioplasty and they found my LAD had a 100% blockage. RCA and LCA have 30% blockages, but they were left alone. They stented the LAD.

I'm 45 with no family history of CAD - tho my dad had quintuple by-pass at the age of 77. I'm about 20 lbs overweight but what surprised me was the symptoms were so uncharacteristic and the docs didn't catch the blockages with the stress test. Learned from this forum that apparently a regular Stress Test can miss 50% of single blockages on the anterior side. Goes up to only 80% accuracy if you have more than one blockage on the anterior side (this data is at the NIH - someone emailed a link, but I don't know it for the present)

So try and get a nuke MRI or better yet a 64 slice Cardiac CT Angiogram. Wish I'd had these done - it might have saved me a lot of "heart ache" (pun intended!)

Best wishes,
Toby