chest pain

[cookienkikin]

Im a 24 yr old male, 205lbs, 6ft, cholesterol 245. I'm a very inactive person for about 4 years now, and I noticed that I can minor activities and be winded and have a fast heart rate that I can feel without putting my hand on my chest, and I also can feel it in my throat and everywhere else where you can feel your pulse. Just by walking up a flight of stairs I get super winded. I've been having recurrent localized left side chest pain for about 2 yrs now. I also have lost of skipped beat feelings. PVC's and PAC's. I've had holter, event monitor, ekgs, blood work, and echo's, all normal besides the pvc's,pac's and svt. My chest pain is on the left side of my chest about an inch and half, to 2 inches with a measuring tape from the center of my left nipple measured straight across towards the middle of my chest. At around 1 1/2 to 2 inches is where the pain always is, and also I will get some pain in my left arm, shoulder and hand. It's like a gripping,pinching, squeezing type of pain. I sometimes get tingly and lightheaded with the skipped beats. I also sometimes will wake up in the middle of the night with the pain, and like forceful heartbeats, and shortness of breath, and it will feel like I ran 10 miles and I will check my pulse and it will seem really slow. I've seen many cardiologist and they seem to not think its heart.   1. What could cause that type of pain, and the nature of it, does it sound cardiac? 2. What could cause the feelings I have when it wakes me during the night? 3.What about the skipped beats, what could cause that, heart problems? 4.I'm scared of v-fibb for some odd reason, whats the chances of that? This all seems to get extremely worse when I'm away from medical care and I get anxious, but it happens everyday even when Im around medical care. Its an EVERYDAY thing, some days worse than others. When I drink I tend to not feel it, but the next days worse, and thats usually the nights it'll wake me up in the middle of the night, after I lay down and go to bed after drinking alot. I can't reproduce the pain by pressing on the area either. Thanks so much

[tulip77]

Hi there. Your symptoms sound like a combination of being out of shape and panic attacks. I started having panic attacks/anxiety when I was when I was 26. I have experienced skipped heart beats many times and did the holter monitor/ECG/EKG/stress tests and all came out fine. You can wake up in the night with a panic attack out of nowhere and anxiety will cause you to overanalyze and get really scared over every symptom you have. It has been reported that people with chronic anxiety will have upper left chest pain.  I have had that too. If it was your heart the pain would be felt in the middle of your chest. I would talk to your doctor about medication to treat anxiety and see if that helps. For the past 6 years I have carried around a bottle of Xanax in my purse and takes it only as needed. Usually 1/2 of a .25 mg pill will calm me down but when I first was given it the doctor had me take 2 in the morning and 1 in the evening - I was that bad! After six years of freaking out every time my heart skips, I get winded or feel like I can't get a deep breath or experience any type of chest pain I am going to an internist on Monday to talk about trying Zoloft.  It has helped my brother tremendously with anxiety. All of the symptoms you have described can come with anxiety/panic. It can do CRAZY things to your body and everybody has a little different symptoms. Does your heart ever race?

[grendslori]

I have a very strong feeling that your problems are anxiety related. Especially when you write about being away from a medical facility. A medical facility should not be a crutch for you. I can understand that feeling of fear, but because my daughter had a severe form of terminal heart disease. What I found was that when I permanently moved away from that facility, I was scared of what could happen leaving the doctors we knew so well, and I also felt FREE at the same time. A medical facility can take ahold of your life and you can become too dependent on it being there. Don't allow yourself to get held up like that, it will rob you of your life! We were forced into it, you are not. The doctor's do not feel you have a heart problem because you do not have a structural problem with your heart. The symptoms that you are describing are symptoms that you have heard over and over again. People know that the heart lays on the left side of the chest, so that's where they think the problem is if they feel anything in the left side of the chest; the same with arm pain. People often times refer to themselves having chest pain because of the thumping of premature beats; young people, teens and children make that mistake a lot. You are actually too young to be having true heart related chest pains because it takes at least 20+ years to build up enough plague in the heart vessels to cause chest pains due to a lack of blood flow. There are some cardiomyopathies that can cause true chest pain in young people, teens and children, but you'd have been diagnosed with that easily if you had all of those tests. Lose weight, as that can certainly be the culprit of a lot of your problems and enjoy your life!

[Encephalomalcia]

LDL levels should be 100 or below, HDL should be in the 40's if male and 50's if female, triglyercides should be 150 or lower.  To lower the LDL level, reducing or eliminating red meat will help reduce it dramatically in a year.  Salmon has Omega 3 which is good for the heart and can help improve HDL levels.  Exercise can help drop cholesterol levels.  Being inactive is the worst thing a person can do.  The heart becomes unconditioned and when the person tries to do anything, the heart will speed up and make the person short of breath.  You need to start walking.  Start slowly and build yourself up.  If you continue to feel your heart skipping beats or beating irregularly talk to your doctor about if you should add a low dose aspirin of 81mg to be taken daily.  Make sure that you are getting enough vitamin B's, vitamin D in your diet along with potassium.  Bananas are a great source of potassium along with potatoes.  Potatoes are best in nutrition if you boil them.  If you do not get enough potassium, this can really affect your heart and potentially can be life threatening in severe potassium loss.  Make sure that you are eating plenty of fresh vegetables and fruits (organic is best).  A lot of the time, people get symptoms because of their diet and eating healthy can make a huge difference.  Stop the drinking.  There are a lot of chemicals in drinks that can affect the body.  If  you make the changes to exercise and eat healthy, you may be surprised to see a huge improvement in the way you feel.