Anyone else out there with painfullest pain ever? Esophageal spasm???

Soooo, im brand spanking new to this forum and only found it by googling some info i got today from my Doc. She thinks i have been suffereing from Esophageal spasms? I just wondered if anyone has had this happen? Its just that i have had two babies without drugs and id seriously do that again rather than deal with the chest/back pain i have been experiencing sporadically these last few years..... Can these spasms possibly cause this much pain? I honestly thought at the time that i was having a heart attack - only it went on for hours and i wasnt dead yet - seriously last ngiht it was so bad that i was almost hoping i would die!!! :) So i guess im just wondering if anyone else has experienced this unbearable pain and also my doc gave me some 'Pariet' to take (20mgs a day) to see if it prevents it and also some Maxalon to help with the pain if it returns. She seems to think the Pariet will clear it right up.  ? 

The only tests i have had are lung and heart x-ray last year (showed small amount of something in my lungs from having severe asthma as a child...) I dont have asthma anymore.

The pain is like an absolute tightenning or cramping feeling of my inner chest and back (around where my bra straps sit) and it radieates up my back and into my neck and both sides of my jaw - the pain makes me want to vomit and drains all my energy and then after the pain subsides i shiver and teeth chatter from the exhaustion. It lasts about an hour and nothing aleviates the pain..... It comes out of nowhere and scares the bejeebers out of me.

(im 30 yrs old) relatively healthy and eat mostly healthy foods.  I also have PCOS but pretty sure they could not be related.

Any one else got any similar symptoms or pain?

Thanks for reading :)

Oh :( Honorable mention. Thanks for the reply - Im so sorry that you have had no luck tackling this pain. How old are you? Or were you when this started? Was/is your pain just constant now? or how often does it occurr for you?
Mine seems to come and go and i dont know if time of year has much to do wiht it, but it always seems to worsen when the cooler weather hits (im in Australia) Im just keeping my fingers crossed that this first attempt at pain reduction (Pariet) will magically work...but it seems highly unlikely as from what im reading on this forum theres not much relief out there at all :(

Hope today is spasm free,
for you and me :) LOL

well, ever since my first pregnancy i have had little bits of acid reflux here and there - nothing major and i usually just have a glass of milk and it goes away. I also noticed about a month ago that when i ate it felt like there was a huge ball in my throat and it hurt like hell for a minute or two - i made a concious effort to chew my food really well but sometimes that wouldnt even work....im only just thinkng about all this now?...do you think its all related? Theat feeling of a huge ball going down my throat hasnt returned for about 3 weeks now - i just thought it was a once off thing, but it makes sence that along with the reflux and pain it could all be part of one and the same issue...whatever that may be?

Daily for 13 weeks! holy cow - thats stressful! I was just reading online that some people have had success with acupuncture - have you ever tried any alternate therapies?

Okay, folks. :)
Your misery is caused by your vegus nerve becoming irritated. The vegus nerve runs down the back of your esophagus and attaches to your heart. When the acid affects the LES it vegus nerve is affected too. It can cause all sorts of pains in odd parts of your body.

You both need to see a GI and have several tests run. One is the manometry to check for problems with your swallowing and LES.

Please see the GI and request these tests.

Joy

You need barium swallow to check for nutcracker esophagus and other swallowing problems. Also add a cardiologist to your list of doctors. some of those symptoms are possibly heart.

Do you have a problem every single time you eat anything? If not keep a food log to check for food triggers/allergies/sensitivities.

There is a syndrome known as cardio-esophageal spasms, aka linked angina. Coronary vasospasm is sometimes caused by eating.

alwayssick said...
Typically when I get the esophageal spasms, the inflammation in my esophagus has worsened - the cause. I will go to having trouble swallowing and digesting everything down (it feels like it gets stuck in the middle), it is very painful. There is a pill that you stick under your tounge and it can relax your insides, for the life of me, cannot remember the name, GI doc typically prescribes it for bowel spasms.

it's either levsin or symax probably...

I first got this exact pain a few years ago and oh my is it scary!!! I thought I was having heart attack since the symptoms do mimic each other quite a bit. Upper back pain that radiates to the jaw...so scary. I have been getting it more and more recently too and now I have to have a HIDA scan to see if it is my gallbladder. Would my gallbladder cause these symptoms?

So strange.. I had the Ultrasound and now my doctor wants me to have the hida scan. I don't have the urq pain like most people so I am not sure why he is so convinced that this is gallbladder issues. I feel as if it is just bad gerd/reflux but who knows, I am not the doctor so I guess I better listen to him.

Just found this site while looking for more info about oesophageal spasm (sorry about the spelling: I'm English!). I couldn't see any mention of glyceryl trinitrate in anyone's posts, which surprised me.
I've been having pain on and off now for nearly 4 years, but they still haven't made an official diagnosis! (Not helped by the fact that because I suffer with depression I keep forgetting to take my medication.) The very first bout had me rushed into hospital with a suspected heart attack, but that was ruled out pretty quickly. Then, since my cholesterol levels and blood pressure were both raised, they decided to put me on statins, aspirin and nitrates while they were investigating, in the assumption that I probably had angina, (my mother had also suffered with it), and also gave me a glyceryl trinitrate spray. They did an angiogram which proved to be negative, but the pattern of my pains tied in more with variant, or prinzmetal's, angina, which wouldn't show up on an angiogram in any case.
They also did a gastroscopy, found that I had GERD, with the beginnings of ulceration, and have been treating that with one of the ppi's, omeprazole.
But the point that I am trying, rather long-windedly, to make, is that at the moment it looks like I either have oesophageal spasm problems, or I have variant angina - but the pain of BOTH of them can be relieved with the use of the spray under the tongue. (Another reason why they haven't yet diagnosed me!) Is it possible that some of you might also benefit from the spray (or tablets), or is this something you have already unsuccessfully tried?
Hope this suggestion might help at least one of you.

Post Edited (merlinsmidwife) : 10/3/2010 8:46:14 PM (GMT-6)

Sorry to hear that, honourablemention. Is there any chance that you might be able to try it now, or would it interfere with your other medication?
I am lucky in that my pain is sporadic, but because of that I am unable to work out what triggers it, and pass that information on to the doctors. I do know that in spite of the fact that I have told them several times, the GI specialists at the hospital haven't yet taken in that I have two types of pain: one which is almost certainly oesophagitis, and the other, the 'mystery', one. The cardiac doctors gave up on me as soon as they got a negative result from the angiogram, and passed me on to the GI people, but I'm not entirely convinced that my problems are purely gastro-intestinal. But I'm just a lay-person - what do I know?!
Horrible though I find my pain, it may be that I do not get it as severely as you, or other forum members, (maybe it isn't caused by spasm, but by angina??), and perhaps that is why I find the spray effective, but I do hope that there are some out there who could obtain some relief from it.

Post Edited (merlinsmidwife) : 10/4/2010 12:02:14 PM (GMT-6)

I don't have the spasms much anymore. I had a severe yeast infection in my esophagus that has been successfully treated and the pains have gone away...

I'm not going to get too excited because they've gone away for months before only to come back and terrorize me everyday.

I should say that I don't have the acute spasms anymore...I still have spasms constantly that cause bad dysphagia.

Welcome purple monkey, feel free to post your introduction in a new thread.

Hi Everyone,

I'm a 31 year old male who has been suffering severe Esophageal spasm and Nutcrackers Esophagus for around 4 years now. I was going to specialists and hospitals for nearly two years before I was diagnosed. Looking up my symptoms online when it first started I found out about Esophageal Spasm and said to my specialist at the time that I thought that it may be the problem as it fitted my symptoms. I was told immediately there was no way it was that!! Anyway, after nearly another two years of pain and tests and I said to my specialist at the time that I wanted to be referred to the best specialist they know of in my city (Melbourne, Australia). Within two weeks this this new guy had me diagnosed and it was exactly what I thought it was very early on. I tried MANY drugs and nothing worked at all except Amitriptylene. It has changed my life. I only take 25MG a day and I still get sick, but nowhere near the amount I used to. I can go for weeks without having any symptoms now.
Anyway anyone who has not had a diagnosis or success with anything yet, I strongly recommend finding the BEST specialist you can. I know this condition is VERY hard to diagnose so if you think that you may be suffering from it, ask for a prescription of Amitriptylene and other drugs that might be used to treat this condition and give it a try. If it doesn't work you have lost nothing! I am sure there are a lot of people out there suffering this just because they are finding it impossible to get it diagnosed!!

If anyone wants to contact me regarding my experience, please email me on [email protected].

Good luck guys