Need clarification please

Hello. I posted in the heart section with no response. Just wondering if someone would know on here ?

I am a 39 year female. A little bit about my background. I suffer with anxiety (health anxiety). I have been tested for my heart , stress test, echo, ecg, wore hear monitor. All came back normal. My history I don’t have high blood pressure it’s always low or heart diseases just cholesterol has been borderline since I was a teen but not high enough to be on meds. My mom just recently been put on BP meds she is 60. As her Pressure was abit high. I have been having chest pain for a couple of weeks now on and off. Yes I went to dr. But she said it’s from my anxiety tensing up my chest walls and stress can cause it too. So my question is for those who have had a heart attack. How can I tel the difference between heart attack or just stress pain ???? This worries me soooo much by our help is appreciated. The pain is constant all day all night only time I don’t feel it is if I’m sleeping

Hi Bam,

Heart attack pain is often described as a sensation of a crushing weight on one's chest. There may also be pain in the jaw line area, or even upper back, and a shooting/radiating pain going down the left arm. With a cardiac event you are also going to have nausea (extreme) shortness of breath and dizziness/feeling faint.

Of course the frustrating thing about these symptoms are that they are also often present with anxiety, especially a panic attack where they might all be happening simultaneously.

In your case however, it sounds like you are primarily dealing with the chest pain which would not be indicative of a HA...especially considering that you are not high risk.

So do your best to trust your doctor and keep working on your Health Anxiety management to reach the goal of not getting derailed by your anxiety symptoms...and eventually lessening/eliminating them altogether.

S.C

It’s scary SC

The pressure and pain. Than it will travel to my back. It been for days now and my jaw hurts at times back etc.

health.clevelandclinic.org

1. Some types of chest pain should send you to the emergency room immediately.
2. If you experience new or unexplained pain, pressure or discomfort in the center of your chest or in your arms, back, jaw, neck or upper stomach — along with shortness of breath, a cold sweat, nausea, fatigue or lightheadedness — for at least five minutes, call 911.

These symptoms may signal a heart attack, or myocardial infarction. Immediate treatment is essential to save heart muscle.

But when chest aches and pains are fleeting, it’s often something different.
Symptoms that suggest another problem
Cardiologist Curtis Rimmerman, MD, notes that the following symptoms are unlikely to signal a heart attack:

1. Momentary chest discomfort, often characterized as a lightning bolt or electrical shock. Heart discomfort or pain is unrelenting, typically for several minutes. Momentary chest discomfort is more likely to result from musculoskeletal injury or inflammation, or nerve pain (e.g., a cracked rib, a pulled muscle in the chest wall or shingles involving the chest.)

2. Pinpoint chest discomfort that worsens with positional changes in breathing. Heart pain is usually diffuse, or radiating. Pinpoint discomfort that worsens with chest expansion (breathing, for instance) is more likely to involve the lungs.

3. Chest discomfort that gets better with exercise. Heart-related pain typically worsens with exercise. Sharp chest pain that improves with movement is more likely to have other causes (e.g., acid reflux.)

Have you ever tried a heating pad on your chest when you have chest pain?

Can you get out and walk some? I try to walk once a day and sometimes I see someone and have a good conversation and it relaxes me.

Can you do volunteer work like at a senior citizens home talking to some of the residents? Or walking a dog at a kennel?

A cold pack on my chest when I'm having chest pain? I wouldn't be able to do that. A heating pad will enlarge the blood vessels in and around the heart, which would make things easier on the heart, but cold would restrict the blood vessels and put more pressure on the heart.

Are you sure that helps?

Don't make me come up there.

You said, "Really?? I thought muscle pain cold helps ?"

Are you still breathing? A cold pack on chest pain?

My chiropractor told me concerning my bad lower back, I have an extra vertebrae, and it slips out every now and cause me pain and he pops it back in. So he told me, in between visits, to alternate heat and cold on that or most any injured area (not the chest, I would think).

So when my back is hurting, I put my heating pad on it and it increases blood flow (more oxygen and nutrients) to the injured area. Moist heat, wringing out a small towel for instance, might work even better, but the towel can't be dripping wet. This for about 10-15 minutes.

On my same hurt back, or most other injured areas, after waiting some 10-15 minutes, I can apply a cold pack to the same injured area. This helps to shrink the inflammation.

They sell cold pack granules at drug stores that conform to your back, arm, etc., and they stay in the freezer. Might buy two so one can still be in the freezer.

Well, we've already been though what's a heart attack: (you might want to print this out)

"If you experience new or unexplained pain, pressure or discomfort in the center of your chest or in your arms, back, jaw, neck or upper stomach — along with shortness of breath, a cold sweat, nausea, fatigue or lightheadedness — for at least five minutes, call 911."

Also for heart attack:

"Uncomfortable pressure, squeezing, fullness or pain in the center of your chest. It lasts more than a few minutes, or goes away and comes back.

"Pain or discomfort in one or both arms, the back, neck, jaw or stomach.

"Shortness of breath with or without chest discomfort.

"Other signs such as breaking out in a cold sweat, nausea or lightheadedness.

"As with men, women’s most common heart attack symptom is chest pain or discomfort. But women are somewhat more likely than men to experience some of the other common symptoms, particularly shortness of breath, nausea/vomiting and back or jaw pain."

And we've been through what's not a heart attack:

Momentary chest discomfort, often characterized as a lightning bolt or electrical shock. Heart discomfort or pain is unrelenting, typically for several minutes. Momentary chest discomfort is more likely to result from musculoskeletal injury or inflammation, or nerve pain (e.g., a cracked rib, a pulled muscle in the chest wall or shingles involving the chest.)

2. Pinpoint chest discomfort that worsens with positional changes in breathing. Heart pain is usually diffuse, or radiating. Pinpoint discomfort that worsens with chest expansion (breathing, for instance) is more likely to involve the lungs.

3. Chest discomfort that gets better with exercise. Heart-related pain typically worsens with exercise. Sharp chest pain that improves with movement is more likely to have other causes (e.g., acid reflux.)
--------------------------
But you say you can't tell the difference:

"yes Stressed but everyone has stress in life. I wish someone could tell the difference between anxiety and heart attack. As this is one of my biggest fears."

In the last few months, through a foul up, I was told to not take my blood pressure medicine for a couple of days, and since with yard work exercise, will then have sharp chest pain that will knock me out if I don't take my Ativan tranquilizer. I also have to take at least 1/2 Ativan at bedtime or I will have chest pain.

So, have you had such a disruption in your heart situation in the last few years to cause this chest pain? When did it start?

As they tell me at the ER, "If the pain stopped when you took an Ativan (tranquilizer), it's not a heart attack." So, if you take a tranquilizer, would the chest pain go away? You'd probably want to talk with your doctor but, would it go away?

Also, if the pain does go away, it's not a heart attack, is what they've told me.

When I had chest pains from a long term (10 years or more) bad marriage, I was very concerned about that. I went to heart doctors, took tests, and they would say no heart problem.

But they wouldn't say what it was. When the marriage ended, the chest pain ended. That was what was causing my chest pain. The tension, constricting of the blood vessels around my heart, reducing the blood flow until it caused chest pain, is my guess.

So, I was always very concerned about the chest pain.

You say, "To me this also sound like anxiety or panic attCk symptoms. So because I have chest pains and no other symptom than I should be ok ?"

I think you can feel OK that it's not a heart problem but a chest pain problem (but I would still keep going to the doctor if I had it), from maybe anxiety. Again, when did this chest pain start? Are you in a stressful situation?

So, in a way that sounds like what it is.

We can't always get out of a stressful situation, be we can try to figure out what is causing it, what is causing the chest pain.

What is the stressful situation?

OK, I'll see you in chat in 10 minutes, if I can remember how to do the chat line.

There is no chat room anymore do you Have kik messenger ?

Ok I guess we can chat here it will just take longer to respond. Unless you have any other way to chat?