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Pediatric Heart (Expert Forum)
muscular skeletal chest pains
Answered by
Jeffrey R Boris, M.D. - Pediatric Cardiology, Ambulatory Cardiology
The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
Philadelphia - PA
Questions in this forum are answered by pediatric cardiologists, cardiothoracic surgeons and anesthesiologists from The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. This forum is for questions and support about pediatric heart problems, symptoms and topics such as heart murmurs, palpitations, fainting, chest pain, congenital heart defects (including management and intervention), fetal cardiology, adult congenital cardiology, arrhythmias and pre-participation athletic screening.
muscular skeletal chest pains
by lisa16kent, Sep 24, 2009 02:41PM
Hi.
Im 16 and for the past 6 months i have been getting muscular skeletal chest pains, i went to my doctor who gave me tablets that was all the general antiinflammatory tablets. I was seeing my doctor 4 times a week it got so bad so they tried me on different medication and nothing seems to be changing so i went to a different doctor who is the best doctor at the surgery and he tried me on different medication and that still didnt help. Now my doctor has referred me to see a cardiologist. I am rather nurvous about what he might say.
Is anything you could do to help me ?
lisa
Im 16 and for the past 6 months i have been getting muscular skeletal chest pains, i went to my doctor who gave me tablets that was all the general antiinflammatory tablets. I was seeing my doctor 4 times a week it got so bad so they tried me on different medication and nothing seems to be changing so i went to a different doctor who is the best doctor at the surgery and he tried me on different medication and that still didnt help. Now my doctor has referred me to see a cardiologist. I am rather nurvous about what he might say.
Is anything you could do to help me ?
lisa
Doctor's Answer
by Jeffrey R Boris, M.D., Sep 29, 2009 05:09PM
, Sep 29, 2009 05:09PMTo: lisa16kent
Dear Lisa,
Obviously, without examining you, I can’t say for sure what the cardiologist will say, or what the cause of your chest pain is. However, it is quite likely that your chest pain is, in fact, due to a musculoskeletal cause. If so, a cardiologist will most probably say that your heart is normal, and that you are not having a heart attack or other problems that are causing your chest wall pain. We do see chest wall pain quite frequently in teenagers, but the history can vary, so it’s important to make sure that a good history is obtained. Brief, sharp pain in adolescents is common, is only a nuisance, and needs no medications. Pain that is reproducible with pushing on your chest, sometimes called costochondritis, often responds to nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, such as ibuprofen or naproxen. I usually treat this for a full week, and make sure that you are on the maximal amount of the drug that you can take. Also, you should make sure that you stretch your pectoralis muscles prior to as well as after exercise. If this is chest wall pain as you are describing, you do not need surgery for this. Finally, in extremely rare cases, some patients need to go to a pain management specialist for this. The bottom line here, though, is that often knowing that this is not a heart attack is reassuring enough that the pain can be ignored till it disappears.
Obviously, without examining you, I can’t say for sure what the cardiologist will say, or what the cause of your chest pain is. However, it is quite likely that your chest pain is, in fact, due to a musculoskeletal cause. If so, a cardiologist will most probably say that your heart is normal, and that you are not having a heart attack or other problems that are causing your chest wall pain. We do see chest wall pain quite frequently in teenagers, but the history can vary, so it’s important to make sure that a good history is obtained. Brief, sharp pain in adolescents is common, is only a nuisance, and needs no medications. Pain that is reproducible with pushing on your chest, sometimes called costochondritis, often responds to nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, such as ibuprofen or naproxen. I usually treat this for a full week, and make sure that you are on the maximal amount of the drug that you can take. Also, you should make sure that you stretch your pectoralis muscles prior to as well as after exercise. If this is chest wall pain as you are describing, you do not need surgery for this. Finally, in extremely rare cases, some patients need to go to a pain management specialist for this. The bottom line here, though, is that often knowing that this is not a heart attack is reassuring enough that the pain can be ignored till it disappears.
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Turns out i have to live with the pain. I had seen the cardioligist and he done a ECG, bloods and blood pressure and every regular test. Nothing they can do apparently