student athlete experiencing extreme symptoms

[Jennyy98]

Hi. I am an 18-year-old female. I am also a college student athlete playing on the 4th best basketball team in my country (Canada). I have been experiencing extreme chest pains, shortness of breath, headaches and weakness in my arms and hands ( no grip). I went to a doctor who detected a heart murmur so we ran a heart echo. The heart echo results were normal as the doctor told me. However, trace mitral regurgitation, trace tricuspid regurgitation and trace pulmonic regurgitation are present. now I know these things are not significant, but I can't help but wonder why I am experiencing such extreme symptoms. my breathing gets heavier when I am laying down, I feel like I am not getting enough oxygen when breathing in so when I breathe in deeper I feel the need to cough and as though there is pressure on my chest, if I laugh I feel sharp pain in my chest and at night my wrists hurt so hard I can't grip my hands. Also my hands are purple or very red all the time especially when I am cold or exercising. At practice when we run I feel like fainting and my stomach starts turning. I also get random headaches on one side of my head and it just pounds. These symptoms are there when I don't play basketball and they get worse when I do. On several occasions I had to wake myself up as I felt suffocated and couldn't breathe.  I genuinely don't understand what the problem is..please help!

[achillea]

Sounds like a pinched nerve in your neck.  This happens a lot during sleep.  Check this out:

http://www.spinemd.com/news-philanthropy/get-to-the-root-of-arm-numbness-or-tingling

[Jennyy98]

I have been checking my heart rate...it has been way lower than the usual which is 60. but now it's 52 or it would spike up randomly to 120. my roommate is a nurse and she checks it for me and she says my heart skips a beat?  

[achillea]

First, don't get hung up on checking your pulse.  You don't know enough to get useful information from that.  Second, for an athlete, a HR in the 50s is just fine (in fact, in many endurance champions, it's waaaay lower than that).

Third:  everyone--everyone--gets skipped beats, but not everyone feels them.  In general, they tend to occur when the heart rate is slow.  (There are reasons for this, which you would learn in the first year of studying physiology.). Also, skipped beats tend to be benign,

But sometimes, they're not.  In a young person with the problems you experience, they're another reason to get a workup by a cardiologist.

I'm not sure why you're delaying on this.

[achillea]

Well, as to the more minor symptoms, when one-sided headaches are involved, migraine should always be investigated.

Red or purple hands can be caused by Raynaud's Syndrome, an annoying but generally benign condition.

You can google/wikipedia both of these problems and get good information about them.

But since you are an elite athlete with chest pains and shortness of breath, which are usually not part of the picture in a very young, athletic woman, I am going to suggest that you make an appointment with a real cardiologist soon for a complete workup based on those symptoms.  It's what I would do, just to be on the safe side, if I were an athlete with similar symptoms.

A couple of questions:  Since you are a basketball player, I assume you are quite tall for a woman? Are you also unusually flexible, perhaps with very long fingers?  

[Jennyy98]

thanks for the help! I am 5'6 so I am pretty average ahaha and I am pretty flexible. I play pg. I have went to 3 doctors and all said the same thing. " your heart is normal". another thing that I forgot to mention is when I get up from laying down I get dizzy and my vision blacks out for a second.. is this concerning?

[achillea]

Were any of the three doctors you saw specialists in cardiology?  Have you had a treadmill stress test followed immediately by an echo?  If not, I believe that you should.

[Jennyy98]

sounds good. do you have any suggestions of what this could be?

[achillea]

No one here can truly diagnose you.  Only a doctor who has examined you in person can do that.  However, anyone who has taken any anatomy and physiology classes would say that any trained young athlete should *not* be having chest pain or trouble breathing while lying down.  The fact that some of your symptoms--like faintness and nausea when running --are worse with exercise is *not* a good thing.

If I were your coach, I'd really, really want your heart looked at with a treadmill stress test followed immediately by an echo, to be sure that your heart and blood vessels are healthy and working properly during exercise (and frankly, I probably wouldn't let you work out again until after that is done).

If you get an all-clear from a qualified cardiologist *after* such a thorough examination--well, then one could look for other, simpler causes for your symptoms, things like dehydration, too few calories, pinched nerves causing pain, and so on.

[Jennyy98]

thank you! okay I will try to get that test done.

[Jennyy98]

I will keep you posted ahaha

[achillea]

Please do it!

[Jennyy98]

Woke up this morning with a swollen arm (right). It's stiff compared to my left arm and my fingers are still tingling!! before I take this to the hospital any suggestions??