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| sarta
- Wed Dec 20, 2006 7:10 pm |
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Hi,
I am 23, female, and I've always been very healthy, with slightly high blood pressure. My mom and one of my sisters have heart murmers, and my dad takes medicine for high blood pressure.
This is what's bothering me:
My heart had been beating fast, and I'd been having palpitations, and what feel like flutters, and chest pains for about a week. I also had a constant low fever (about 99.0-99.4). I stopped having any caffeine after two days of this. I saw a doctor finally a week ago, and had a EKG, which was normal. He tested my thyroid hormones, and said they were normal too. He gave me 10mg Inderal to take 3 times a day, and referred me to a cardiology clinic, which I haven't been to yet. He told me he thinks I'm fine, and that this is probably all due to anxiety, but that I should get checked just to be sure. I've been taking the inderal, which really helps the anxiety, but I've been feeling dizzy a lot of the time and my chest aches and I get out of breath when I exert myself even a little. The center of my back, between my shoulder blades, feels sore. I am a bit anxious about everything, so I've been very tense, which might be causing the back ache. Also, for the last two days my stomach has been feeling very swollen and achy. It hurts mostly along the bottom of my ribs, and especially right in the center if I press down a bit. I don't know if this is related or not. I feel like my heart beats strangely when I lie down flat, and that it's better when I'm sitting up and even walking slowly. I think I've been having trouble sleeping because of this. Probably unrelated: I also have a firm lump, about 1cm across, that seems to be attached to my sternum. It doesn't hurt unless I rub it a lot. I forgot to mention it to my doctor.
I am just curious to know what might be going on, and whether it's anything I should be really worried about. I don't have health insurance, but the clinic I was referred to is very affordable, though I don't know how long I will have to wait for an appointment.
Thanks for your advice in advance!
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| Dr. Safaa Mahmoud
- Thu Dec 21, 2006 7:34 pm |
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 Hello,
The chest contains many organs, like the heart, lungs with its pleural covering, esophagus, muscles, ribs, tendons, and nerves. They all can be the source of the pain felt in the chest.
The swelling and chest pain may be related to costochondritis a condition in which there is inflammation where the ribs are attached to sternum. The swelling is usually tender.
In many cases it is of idiopathic origin. In others it results from direct trauma, aggressive exercise by a strain, or a prior upper respiratory tract infection with cough resulting in stretching and strain at the costochondral junction. You have mentioned that you have low grade fever in the last period, did you have any attack of respiratory tract infection and cough recently?
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Viral infection may cause both pain in the costochondral joint and palpitation as well.
However, in case of chest pain, especially with family history, cardiac causes should be excluded. MVP (mitral vulvae prolapse is a common cause of palpitation and diagnose by echocardiography.
Sometimes chest pain is not originating from the chest itself; instead it is due to problems in the digestive tract. These problems include IBS, gastritis, gall bladder disease, GER. The pain and tenderness you feel at the lower sternum could be related to one of these causes.
Stress and anxiety alone can cause chest pain, epigastric pain and palpitations. They also aggravate the condition causes by most of the above diseases.
Hope this information is useful.
Keep us updated.
Best regards.
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