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Spontaneous pneumopericardium

About two months ago I was diagnosed with a pneumopericardium. They found this because I also had a spontaneous pneumothorax and pneumomediastinum at the same time. They decided not to put a chest tube in because even though there were three seperate places with air, they were all small enough. I was immediately moved up to cardiac ICU because of the pneumopericardium. It was giving me really irregular heart rythms and if I would move from a laying position I would get "tombstone" ST elevation showing on my monitor. I was released after 6 days in the hospital but I still get irregular heart rhythms everyonce and a while. Lately I have been having  sever back pain and occasional stabbing feeling in my chest. I also tend to get very short of breath from doing the slightest of activities. Iheard this can be caused by these things. Is it possible it is starting to come back? Also I was wondering how a pneumopericardium is caused. I know what it is but I have yet to find a place that can tell me why it happens. Also I am a 19 y/o female, a little on the heavier side but I excersed a decent amount. I have never had any sort of reapiratory or cardiac problems prior to this occurring. And my original symptoms when this occurred was a crushing feeling in my chest and some pinpoint stabbing pain eventually accompanied by extreme difficulty breathing.
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Avatar universal
Yeah it helped, I just think it is really odd because I have never had any respiratory issues before, no asthma or getting short of breath, I wasn't even doing any exercising around the time this happened. I try to stay away from pain meds as much as possible, I just don't like the way I feel when on them. I just want all this gone. I think some of the pain I am having could be due to stress, I am a college student who is taking 22 credits, working 18 hrs a week and I volunteer for several places each week. I don't really know the answers. I may have been able to diagnose my self with the pneumothorax (I'm an emt basic student) but I have no idea why I am in such pain. Sometimes I can't even move because my back is hurting so bad. And then I will also get stabbing chest pain sometimes which is usually followed by a few missed beats or an irregular rhythm. I have also noticed when I get these episodes I get crazy low blood pressure. My normal is about 110/70 but when I have the attacks of pain they have dipped as low as 62/30.
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1495448 tn?1326842830
MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL
I'm sorry to hear you're still having some trouble.  There are many causes of pneumopericardium and pneumomediastium.  Most of them involve some kind of trauma or rupture of an organ filled with air (lungs, bowel).  They can often be seen in young people with asthma attacks.  Sometimes rigorous exercise or straining can cause them.  They usually don't cause any significant problems and can be treated with rest and pain medications until the air is reabsorbed.  If you are having a lot of problems try talking to your doctors about high dose oxygen or increasing your pain meds.  I would push your physicians to try to pinpoint a cause of this as it is not very common.  Hope this helps.  Best of luck.
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