Chest pain or panic attack?

[AnonEMous]

I have had a 10 year history of this, starting at age 24. Sometimes I get chest pains (minor in level, maybe a 2-3 out of 10) on the left side of my chest, radiating down to my arm. Sometimes I get shortness of breath and dizzyness, feel an impending sense of doom, like I'm going to pass out.

I've been hospitalized multiple times. I have passed ecg's, two thalium stress tests, multiple echos, and most recently a heart cath. I have literally never, ever had an abnormal cardiac test result, despite all these.

So at this point, after the cath, the cardiologist says my heart is ruled out, and it's probably panic disorder. Which I have looked up and it seems easily to fit in. Today, I had a spell of feeling like I was going to faint, and feeling very panicked, with an impending sense of doom, with a few heart palpatations thrown in and with some little chest pains thrown in. I took 2mg of ativan and laid down. Within an hour, I felt a good 90% better.

Thing is, sometimes I randomly have the chest/arm pain, totally related to the other symptoms. And vice versa. And I read that chest pain from panic disorder does not radiate into the arm.

But I've passed a cath!

Sometimes the pain radiates into my right arm or my legs, but it's usually the left arm, by the way.

Any ideas? This is driving me nuts!

[achillea]

Have you spoken with a psychiatrist about this?  If not, I strongly recommend it, because shrinks go to med school and each one gets some exposure to cardiology.

You can got a LOT of help from a good shrink when you're dealing with physical symptoms that have no basis in fact.

You mention the worrisome, heart-.appropriate pains in your arm.  Funny thing, but once we know *where* a pain is supposed to occur, our brains will happily supply the appropriate information to us, even if it is bogus. The fact that the same type of pain occurs inappropriately on the opposite side of the body is a dead giveaway for two things:

1.  The source of the pain is not in your heart.
2.  Your subconscious is doing a wonderful number on you.

Seriously, get thyself to a good psychiatrist.  He or she will be able to evaluate your symptoms from a medical and psycho point of view, and will offer you an appropriate treatment.  Ask me how I know.

[AnonEMous]

Anyone have any help for me? Still experiencing this and it's severely affecting my life :(

[joshua77]

I have heart problems ms panic disorder ocd some retinal tears blind spots. The impending doom with chest pain is the worst out of all of them. I know its hard to just say well its not my heart when you have a heart phobia but I also went to a neuro because of the pain. I think if you gave that a shot maybe they could help. You said the ativan helps witch it helps me sometimes to it effects CNS and stuff like that I was in a high does of amitryptline and it worked for my migraines and nerve pain. I'm no doc only experience of what I felt good luck.