Chest Pains

[Joe949]

I'm a 15 yr male and overweight.I also use to have high blood pressure and I might still do. I am active though with football training, lacrosse, and some sailing. I have chest pains at random times during the day it feels more to than the center then to the left or right. I want to know whats causing this and how to get rid of this and ways of prevention too.

[Joe949]

Dear Dr Jeffrey,

Thank you for your help. I will definitely keep better care of my self, and thank you for the tips for weight lifting.

The pain isn't sharp when I'm still but when I move fast motion I really feel it. The pain last from a half an hour to 2 hours, I will be going to my doctor with in the week so thanks again for your help and your tips I will definitely use them

[Jeffrey R Boris, M.D.]

Dear Joe,

I truly appreciate your honesty in evaluating yourself and your status, including your weight issue.  This will serve you well.  Unfortunately, I don’t have nearly enough information to tell you what is causing your chest pain.  I need much more, including how long it lasts, is it sharp or dull, how severe is it, is it worse with inspiration, and a lot of other questions.  Therefore, as far as your chest pain goes, I would definitely have your primary care provider go through this evaluation with you and make sure that the history is reassuring.  I can say that the vast majority of chest pain in children and teenagers is not due to the heart, BUT that doesn’t mean that they all aren’t, so do get it checked out.

As far as prevention, the most important thing that you can do from a prevention standpoint is to take care of your heart and your body appropriately.  When you go to your doctor, make sure that your blood pressure is checked to see if it is still elevated. We absolutely see high blood pressure because of being overweight, which is causing a large strain on your heart and is a significant risk factor for early coronary artery disease and heart attacks.  As far as things you can do at home, the biggest things you can do include appropriate dietary and exercise interventions to try to get your weight down, which should bring down your blood pressure.  Realize that these are permanent lifestyle changes, and not something that you would be doing for 1 or 6 or even 12 months.  Dietary interventions including elimination of fast food, fried food, fatty food, and sodas; eating more fruits and vegetables; decreasing dairy fat content to skim or fat-free; using baking, broiling, or steaming for cooking (not frying); and, above all, smaller portion sizes.  A portion size is the size of the palm of your hand, and you only get firsts (no seconds/thirds).  Exercise interventions include doing aerobic exercise (walking, running, swimming, bicycling, basketball, etc.) for 60 minutes on a daily basis.  The football training that you are doing may be good for strength training, but if your blood pressure is elevated, you should not be doing ANY isometric activities (football, wrestling, weightlifting) until your blood pressure is adequately controlled.  As well, under the age of 16, any weightlifting you do should involve low weights and high reps (3 sets of 15 repetitions performed fairly easily).  If after losing weight your blood pressure is still elevated, it needs to be further evaluated by your primary care provider for other avoidable reasons, and may need medication therapy, as well.