Posted 7/7/2014 11:48 PM (GMT 0)
Hi everyone...I've been dealing with this issue since October 2013. I'm a 36 yo male. I was under some heavy work stress last Aug and September (I'm a web developer and got a major project thrown on me with little warning and short timelines). So very late Sept or early October, I was sitting on the couch watching TV late at night and felt a sharp burring pain just below my breast bone. It came and went and I didn't think much of it. The next night, around the same time the same thing. Then a few days with nothing. Then I started having the same feeling midday for a week or two. It went away for a week or so and came back for a week or so. That went off an on for weeks. I also started having a dull pain in my middle right chest, so I made an appt in Dec to see my general practitioner. I had a chest x-ray that showed everything looked fine. On my own, I tried OTC Prilosec for two weeks and it worked very well. A few days after stopping it came back. Saw my general practitioner again, I went on 2 months of prescription Prilosec which ended up not really working at all. And during these two month I began having an icy sensation down the right side of my throat. So after the two months plus tapering time of Prilosec and really getting nowhere (there were periods of no symptoms, but all in all the two month were certainly not symptom free), I made an appt with a GI specialist, he wanted to do an H Pylori test. I had to be free of any PPIs for two weeks before we could do the test. During those two weeks, I had vacation planned to the Bahamas. Within a day of being there, I was symptom free. Came back, and within a few days started with the burning sensation. Had the H Pylori breath test, came back negative so we scheduled a scope. In early May, I had the scope, everything looked fine. Went most of the month of May with no (or very little) symptoms. June came around and I was having more of the chest pains. Some days just a minor twinge, other days a radiating pain that makes me feel like I have to stretch my whole right side to get any relief. And now going into July chest pains and burning switch on and off. The weird thing is it's either burning in lower middle chest, or pain in right middle, but not both at the same time. Also sometimes the right middle chest pain radiates up into my right throat/neck.
So between the x-ray, an H Pylori test, an upper endoscopy, and a general annual checkup (in Feb) everything looks fine...but I sure don't feel fine.
Side note, I generally feel better when doing physical work (lawn, firewood, cleaning pool, etc.) and definitely feel much better when eating and for a few hours after I eat.
I've tried different things in terms of diet...went weeks without coffee, beer, wine, etc. None of that made a difference one way or the other.
Anyone have anything similar or any ideas? Thanks everyone!