muscular skeletal chest pains

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

[Jeffrey R Boris, M.D.]

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.

[WIZARDKID]

I think you just ran into a few incompetent doctors, some doctors just don't know what the hell there doing. If a doctor cant help you with a few minor chest issues, then hes not good. A specialist like a Cardiologist will know what to do! ; )  

[matt10059]

can you exercise normally if you are expierencing chest wall pains? i am 18 and have been expierencing chest pains for over two months and my all my tests for my heart came back perfect

[lisa16kent]

Hey

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