Hello to all and thank you for reading my post. I was running sprints about 3 weeks ago…sprinting for 15 seconds and walking quickly for 10 seconds and suddenly after stopping to begin my walk portion, I experienced a sharp chest pain on the upper left side of my chest. I couldn’t take any deep breaths at the time. As a matter of fact, I had to walk about a mile to get home because there was no way I could run any further. After finally getting home, I sat on the couch kinda hunched over trying not to breath too deep because of the pain. It finally subsided about an hour later leaving me with only minor discomfort. Well as of today…it’s still there. All along I have continued to work out mainly with weights thinking that deep breaths would not be necessary and I’ve also done some moderate jogging and swimming with mild discomfort but never pushing myself. On Sunday, I decided to get on my bike and do some real road work since I can’t stand riding my exercise bike all the time. Initially in my aero position, I experienced moderate discomfort but eventually it subsided. On Monday, I could tell that I pushed it bit too hard on my ride because the pain was above moderate. I’ve always been physically fit and have been doing triathlons (mainly sprints) for the past three years. I eat well…at least most of the time. I’m not overweight. No one in my family has ever had any heart problems. The strange thing is this is something that I’ve experienced growing up but only for a few seconds. Sharp pain in the chest especially when breathing deep. I even have friends say they’ve experienced the same thing. We’ve always called it growing pains. The only thing is, I’m 43 about to turn 44 so I don’t know if growing would still apply. Initially when this happened, I assumed that’s what was taking place but this time, the pain didn’t go away after a couple of minutes and continued to trouble me up until now. I know many of you reading this are saying to yourselves, “get you ass to the doctor”. I’m going. Just waiting for the underwriter of my insurance policy to tell me when the effective date of new upgraded policy will take effect. Currently I only have a catastrophic policy so the tests involved to trouble shoot this problem could add up quickly. My upgraded policy should take effect within a week or so. I was just wondering if anyone has experienced this? Shit…I thought I was going to die. Scary feeling if you’ve never had a thought like this. Thanks again for reading my post and any feedback would be appreciated. I have a tri coming up in about 3 weeks and by all means, I don’t want to drop dead in the water, on the bike or on the pavement.
Hmmm, might be worth your cash to see the Doc before your insurance kicks in.
an ekg would be the first step, and that shouldn’t be too expensive. i don’t want to make a diagnosis without seeing you; the best advice is to see a md.
I would always see a doc on stuff like that. I had a similar pain but in my case I pulled a rib. Don’t know how. It took a few of weeks to get better.
John
Have seen a similiar thread on here about the same thing recently.
I think everyone gets little bits of pain in the chest region at times and it can be the intercostal muscles or the lungs etc also. It seems alot of folk think any pain in this region is from the heart.
What I remind myself is the other symptom that can be related to the heart such as a heavy chest and pains in the shoulder region which are quite diffuse. Not many people on ST ever talk about these but they are the ones I here people talking about after having a heart attack.
I agree with the other 2 posts. That being said what you describe
is not typical for angina especially since you have kept working out
with significant increase in symptoms but there are many people that
have atypical angina so get it checked. What it kindof sounds like is
pleurisy which is a condition where the lining of th lung dries out and
causes friction between the lung and pleura.
Get it checked to be safe
Mike
Tom - your doc will figure this out. Pleuritic pain generated from the lung cavity versus some type of muscular pain. Were it me, I’d make the call today before I ran again.
I’ve had a pain similar to this before while running, it usually didn’t last as long as you are describing but it sounds similar. My solution and I have said it before: more core work and especially push ups for this one. One thing I have done is gone and worked out at the MMA gym near my house with their trainers. They do really extreme core work and you begin to see how much more you could be doing to work your core than most people do. One thing I like to do is super sets: 6 pull ups, 30 push ups, 50 sit ups (real sit ups) 10 times. You may not be able to do that right away but keep at it and I bet your pain will go away. Go see a doctor too just in case.
just dealt with this the week OF IMLP!
pain was like a knife in the chest and actually was bad enough to feel like it was the whole left side of my torso. it happened the saturday before lake placid while on a VERY leisurely ride with my wife. i thought i was dieing it hurt so bad. sunday it was a little better as i didn’t do anything. monday i woke up and felt ok… then i went started out on my normal 6 mile run first thing. about a mile in i had to stop and walk home! while walking i was fine but take a few “jogging” steps the pain shot right back up again. went to the ER that day and spent 5 hrs doing all kinds of ekg’s and x-rays and ultra sounds. only for the DR to tell me my heart doesn’t “pump out enough blood” WTF? i said i needed a second oppinion cause i have an IM in 5-6days and that is something kinda big. scheduled a stress test for wednesday (i was leaving thursday morning). meanwhile i took monday off from exercise, and did a hard 1hr on the trainer tuesday night. the trainer session proved to me it wasn’t heart problems as the pain was there but the intensity was not related at all to heart rate. after the trainer ride i did an around the block brick and i couldn’t out run my 4 yr old due to the pain. soon as i stopped the pain was gone. jumped up and down and the pain came and left just as quickly.
i took some Ibprofen and rested til my test on wednesday.
wednesday i did a nuclear picture taking thing on my heart AND a treadmill stress test. i maxed out the treadmill and passed the picture test and got the ok from the dr to go racing.
pain came back on the downhill running at LP but was good all other times. it just lately has truely gone even from the downhill running.
long story shortened… take some ibprofen and rest if it doesn’t go away you should have that new insurance and you can get all those tests.
You really need to see a doctor, if you honestly thought you were “going to die”. Cardiac problems are not really something to be diagnosed on the internet by athletes.
Honestly, (I am not a doctor and make no diagnosis here ) your pain sounds like it is musculoskeletal. NOt all chest pain is “heart pain”. The other culprit could be asthma…or you might have blockage in a coronary artery that could lead to a cardiac arrest. This is why you should get checked out by a physician with appropriate testing resources.
In many cases, if you explain to a physician you are paying with cash (1) you can get a discount - as they save time and work hours by not dealing with insurance companies (2) you can work out a payment plan (3) they will temper the testing to what you can afford. Finally ,medical care is a tax deduction as well (assuming it cost a certain percentage of your income) and you may just have to suck it up and pay a bit.
IF Ibuprofen helps it is probably musculoskeletal. The deep breathing thing makes it sound like that, as opposed to cardiac.
It is kind of funny tho how everyone panics b/c of swimming deaths but no one ever wants to make the trip to the doctor.
How would you describe your body type? You said you are not and have never been over weight. Would you fit in to the lanky, long, under weight, wide but shallow chest type. If so, this body type is prone to spontaneous pneumothorax (collapsed lung without trauma). This is where air gets into the space between your lung and chest wall. The air passes through a small hole in the lung. This can lead to a little or a lot of air in that space. This will cause discomfort directly related to breathing. If the hole closes (as most do) a small amount of air will be absorbed over time. If it is a large amount of air a chest tube is used to purge the air and reinflate the lung. This is easily diagnosed with a chest X-Ray. This happens in teen age boys mostly. As you stated a history it could be related.
I am no doctor but I did stay at a Holiday Inn last night.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_pneumothorax#Spontaneous_pneumothorax