Just started 1 week in..new chest pain?!

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  • pony4us
    pony4us Posts: 125 Member
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    It was heart failure.
    As I posted this (no lie) we had a short shower at sunset with a rainbow. Sarah (my firend) says...CALL YOUR DOCTOR. (you will probably be fine but in this case ignorance is not bliss)
  • jillebean86
    jillebean86 Posts: 79 Member
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    There are a few things that can cause chest pain with exercise.

    It could be a muscle strain, a broken rib, or an injury where your ribs connect to your sternum. If you can reproduce the pain by pressing on the area with your hand, there's a good chance it's a muscle or joint.

    It could be a lung issue. Asthma is a common cause of chest pain with exercise, and COPD can look similar. If you feel like you can't catch your breath and your chest feels tight, this might be the issue. Not drinking enough water to match your new exercise level can cause the linings of your lungs to stick to each other rather than sliding smoothly as you breathe. If you feel a sharp pain only with a very deep breath and it resolves immediately as you exhale, this could be it.

    It could be a stitch. This is an irritation of the diaphragm that occurs with intense exercise, especially if you've been away from exercise for a while. If the pain is more on one side of your upper abdomen rather than your chest, this could be it.

    Annnnnd it could be cardiac. Angina is pain caused by your heart not getting enough blood due to clogged coronary arteries. When you exercise, your heart works harder, so it needs more blood. If it can't get enough blood, the parts that are starved for oxygen become ischemic, which is painful. If the ischemia continues, that part of the heart stops working - that is a heart attack.

    There are also heart rhythm problems, heart valve problems, heart shape problems (getting all stretched out from years of being overworked), and problems with the pericardium, or lining around the heart - that can all cause pain with exercise.

    There's no way to tell what's causing your pain from your symptoms alone. You need to be evaluated by a doctor ASAP, definitely before you exercise again. Your doctor will ask a lot more questions about your symptoms to try to narrow down the cause of your pain. They will listen to your heart and lungs with a stethoscope, and probably press on your belly and tap or press on your chest with their hand. They will probably do an EKG - a painless (unless you have a lot of chest hair) heart rhythm test that involves putting stickers on your chest with wires attached to them. They might order some blood tests to check for risk factors for heart attack. They might recommend an echocardiogram, a painless ultrasound of your heart. They might order a stress test, which involves doing intense exercise or getting an injection of a drug that makes your heart race, in a controlled environment where they can monitor your heart. They might have you wear a Holter monitor, a device that monitors your heart rhythm all the time, for several days at home. Only if these non-invasive tests indicate that there is a serious heart problem, will a cardiologist do an invasive procedure like a cardiac catheterization, which is essentially heart surgery to examine and fix blood vessels from the inside.

    I hope you'll follow everyone's advice here and get this issue checked out right away.

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