Symptoms of Heart Disease?

[pwcali]

I am a 39 year old male, non-smoker, generally healthy (120/80 BP, 118 chol, 47 HDL, 24.5 BMI), I have no personal history of heart problems, but my father had a mild heart attack and bypass surgery when he was in his late 50's.

I have been experiencing a few problems, and I'm not sure if they're related and if they point to a cardiac origin.

1) I have been experiencing brief (1 to 5 second), mild chest pains. They don't always occur in the same spot, and they're mild enough that I sometimes wonder if I'm imagining them, but I don't think so. They are most frequently located just to the right of my sternum, but not always.

2) Now and then over the last several years, I have experienced occasional heart "flutters", where I skip a beat or where my heart seems to kind of stutter for a couple of seconds before resuming its normal rhythm. I've been having these once or twice a day for the past few weeks.

A few years ago, I had this checked out by my doctor. He took an ECG, which he said looked normal (though none of these flutters were observed during the test), and told me that these are relatively common and were probably related to stress, and weren't serious. Nevertheless, I'm really wondering now that I'm also feeling the chest pains.

3) Sometimes when I take a deep breath my sternum makes an audible "pop", and it feels good when that happens, though I haven't been able to make a clear correlation between the brief chest pains and this popping thing since the chest pains are typically so brief.

I don't want to overreact -- I'm thinking that the whole thing might be a combination of musculoskeletal pain with some anxiety and stress thrown in. On the other hand, I don't want to be rationalizing away what could be serious early warning signs.

Any recommendations as to how I should think about this, or what I should do would be very appreciated.

[Rondal]

I'm also experiencing these popping sound ur saying. It usually happens in the morning when i wake up and stretch my arms out. It feels good actually when it happens but lately i'm concern with this because i'm experiencing chest pains now very often. and it happens in the area where this popping sound occurs. By the way, the pop sounds many in mine. I mean, it's not just one pop. It's more likely the sound of your knuckles when you lock it in both hands and stretch. I think Nick81 is partly correct with the symptoms of costochondritis. I think I have it. Actually I already suspected it long time ago. Now, since i'm experiencing chest pains near my sternum, I'm trying to avoid this popping sound. What I think is happening is that the muscle or tissue around my sternum or ribs near the sternum is swollen because of this popping thing. So I think it would be safe if you try to avoid it as much as you can. My chest pains are also brief but it comes so often during the day. I also had my tests which came out fine. So maybe this popping thing could be a thing to blame.
By the way, how do you sleep at night? is it in one side? Me, I always try to sleep with my back not on one side. or much worse on your stomach. especially when your bed is kinda hard.
Try to put muscle relaxant ointments in your chest when the chest pain bothers you. It helps me a lot.

[nick81]

Does the pain often come when you move suddenly or when you stretch in a certain way? This is, as you say, most likely muscle related. Google "costochondritis", it's a very common problem that can have heart attack-like symptoms.

I also get the same kind of "pop" occasionally, for me it is the same kind of pop as when I "crack my fingers" or when it pops in other joints, so I never thought much about it.

[Cleveland Clinic]

It is unlikely that any of your symptoms are related to obstructive heart disease. Heart disease usually causes pain which is worse with exertion or activity, shortness of breath, lower extremity edema, or any combination of the above. You should start by modifying your risk, by loosing weight if you are overweight, controlling cholesterol and blood pressure, enjoying a healthy lifestyle with low salt low cholesterol diet, and moderate amounts of exercise.