Pain in upper right chest muscle/ also through my arm

[Ginabeena123]

Im a 22 year old college student and I have been having this pain for a year now. The pain is in the upper right of my chest and shoots a pain every once and a while into my arm and my fingers start  tingle.  I kickbox two nights a week and when i do the pain gets worse and it actually starts to move towards my shoulder.   I have only went to my doctor once and he told me it may be from stress. He told me to get an chest x-ray done. So I did and everything was fine.  I am still having the pain. Almost everyday, almost every hour.  Sometimes it even wakes me up at night.  Im afraid if i go back to the doctor they will just tell me that same exact thing.  I don't understand why I am having these pains and im scared.  There are no signs of heart disease in my family or heart attacks.  Can anyone relate to my problem? Thank you so much
:)
-Gina

[Bhupinder Kaur, MD]

Hello Gina,

Various possibilities can be there for your symptoms.As you had an x-ray chest which turned out to be normal,so lung diseases can be ruled out.But still CT chest is a better choice.The various non pulmonary causes are costochondritis(an inflammation of the joints in your chest. Costochondritis usually goes away on its own. Try an anti-inflammatory medicine to relieve the pain. Heat compresses may also help), Gall bladder disease(fullness and pain in the upper right side of your abdomen and chest after eating a greasy or fatty meal), spasm of the muscles of the chest or pinched nerve like in brachial neuritis.

Apply some warm compresses and take some anti inflammatory analgesic(pain reliever) like ibuprofen(motrin) or diclofenac.Also apply some muscle relaxant on the area.If symptoms persist then pls discuss the above possibilities with your doctor.An ECG chest is required as in every case of chest pain cardiac causes have to be ruled out.

Hope it helps.Take care and pls do keep me posted on how you are doing.

[sk8rs_s0uL]

i would say it might be some sort of muscular bone thing that might be doing this to you have you been injured of any sort or had a surgery? if so that may be the cause and you might wanna see a doctor and go from that if not you may want to try a different kind of doctor and research it more to determine what it might be and write a list down on it... if you are highly physical in kickboxing it might be to much stress on your body or just stress itself. please keep us updated on your conditon. hope you feel better