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Left side chest pain

I'm a 16 yr old male, highly anxious. Recently I've been having bad chest pains. It hurts more when I inhale and it hurts more when I'm active. It also however, hurts when I'm at rest too.

These symptoms are not foreign to me though. Over the summer I had a panic attack, out of the blue. And that's when the daily chest pain, shortness of breath, and palpitations started. I had 1 ER visit, 3 EKGs, a 24 hour holter monitor, blood work, a chest xray and an electrocardiogram  (ultrasound) of my heart. They all came back normal.

So I'm not too worried about it.. but now that the pain has returned and its worse I'm worried that it might actually me a real heart problem now. Like maybe my heart has been pumping so much blood too hard because I'm anxious that it has damaged the valves or something.

Any thoughts?
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Avatar universal
I'm not going to go so far as to say this is in your head, but it doesn't sound like a heart problem and your doctors have confirmed this.  It does sound like you might have an injury -- do you remember any activity that might have strained that area around the time it started?  What you describe sounds a bit like getting hit in the ribs, which I've experience a few times when I practiced martial arts.  
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7 Comments
The fact they returned makes me think it is in your head and the doctors didn't suggest you had an injury. Because you are only 16 your body heals fast.

You inboxed me that it is now in your back but there likely aren't any ailments that move around your body and come and go. Is there a school counselor you can talk this over with and perhaps they will refer you for therapy if their one on one doesn't help.
Most people live with minor ouches, twitches, itches etc once in a while and likely you felt this before like other people do but just ignored them.
zach3100  Your anxiety is getting the best of your thinking. You can't feel blocked arteries or else doctors wouldn't need their equipment.
If you were suffering from heart issues as long as you think, you would be dead. That is what the ER person told me when I went in after about a week of sweating, pain etc from tensing up with worry. So I stopped worrying and all the "symptoms" disappeared.

You have been feeling this way for months so no way is it a heart attack issue. Your doctors have studied your situation and decided there is nothing wrong.
If it in fact moved to the back this is also a sign of strained ribs -- they wrap from the front to the back.  I can't say this is what the problem is, I have no idea, but it is more likely than a heart problem.  It could just be anxiety, but anxiety doesn't cause everything.  Anxious people get boo boos too.
I started to feel good about what you said, but then while I was christmas shopping today I suddenly got a really sharp burning pain in my back and chest on the left side. It got so bad that I had to sit down and chlench myself and I was crying. A few minutes after that I got a really bad palpitation and I got tingles going down my body and I started to black out for a second.

At that point I knew I was having a heart attack. But I couldnt go to the doctor because they had closed already and I'm too broke to go to the ER. It costs $600 to go to the ER and I only have $200. I just don't know what to do I feel like I'll die any minute now. Ive never had chest pain that bad
And I have a legitimate question. Why is the pain ALWAYS right where my heart is? Like honestly Id be way less concerned if it were anywhere else
A heart attack feels like a very  heavy weight being pushed against your chest so you didn't have that. If you had the heart issues you think exist, you would have been dead long ago. Likely you had a panic attack.
Why don't you see your school counselor for a discussion?
We have guidance counselors at school but they dont talk about personal issues like this. They just talk about class schedule changing
Avatar universal
The pain is all in your head from over-analyzing in fear and tensing up. Try to look at it that way and relax, in which case the pain will disappear. You are not a doctor, so self-diagnosis will not reveal anything the doctors missed.
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1 Comments


Did you ever have chest pains during your anxiety? I'm the 16 yr old you read about. I always had the chest pains and I was worried I had angina. I also had shortness of breath and palpitations. I've been through all the tests. Blood work, chest xray, EKG, 24 hour holter monitor, Echocardiodiagram. All came back normal.  I was at that point convinced that there was nothing wrong with my heart.


But now.. a couple months later the symptoms popped up again. And the chest pain is just really making me anxious. It feels worse and different than the last chest pain I had. This one is like in my back and all over the left side of my chest. I know that all the tests came back fine but now I'm just not convinced. I can literally feel my arteries being blocked which is what could be causing the pain.
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