Aa
Undiagnosed? Strange!
(Also posted elsewhere. I need help!)
Symptoms that are seemingly simple or common cannot be put together to form a diagnosis.
For some reason, last Sunday, I had shortness of breath. I dismissed it as allergies, trying to breathe as best I could and still maintain my opinion that it was just my allergies and that nothing was wrong. I can't take deep breaths.
The following day, I woke up with chest pain. It felt worst on my right side than the left, and I felt it on the sternum too. I also had shortness of breath. I was alarmed. I'm not someone to visit doctors, but I went to mine. He checked my blood pressure and listened to my heart beat. Nothing was irregular. He told me to come back if it got worse.
On Wednesday, I went back. He told me it could be a bruised sternum from sleeping on my stomach. I happen to sleep on my stomach, so I thought that it could be likely, but I was also sceptical because it wasn't a gradual pain, it was sudden. It hit me out of nowhere. so did the breathing. He prescribed an anti inflammatory and told me that it would fix it. I kept the prescription, but I didn't purchase it.
On Thursday, the chest pain and shortness of breath was unbearable, and so I went to the ER. After 9 hours of waiting and small tests, they told me nothing was visibly wrong and that I'm probably just anxious. But I know my body. I react to anxiety differently, and although I might have had the signs of an anxiety attack, I feel that it's a lot deeper than that. They did an ECG, blood work, and a urine sample. While in the waiting room I started to feel the numbness, and that is by far the most disturbing of my symptoms.
I went home with nothing to go on. On Friday, I couldn't sleep alone. I felt that I'd wake up in a shock whenever I fell asleep, and whenever I'd wake up I'd get an uncomfortable numbness on my right leg and arm. Sometimes it stretched to my head.
I mean, it can't be so strange that they can't figure it out?
Symptoms that are seemingly simple or common cannot be put together to form a diagnosis.
For some reason, last Sunday, I had shortness of breath. I dismissed it as allergies, trying to breathe as best I could and still maintain my opinion that it was just my allergies and that nothing was wrong. I can't take deep breaths.
The following day, I woke up with chest pain. It felt worst on my right side than the left, and I felt it on the sternum too. I also had shortness of breath. I was alarmed. I'm not someone to visit doctors, but I went to mine. He checked my blood pressure and listened to my heart beat. Nothing was irregular. He told me to come back if it got worse.
On Wednesday, I went back. He told me it could be a bruised sternum from sleeping on my stomach. I happen to sleep on my stomach, so I thought that it could be likely, but I was also sceptical because it wasn't a gradual pain, it was sudden. It hit me out of nowhere. so did the breathing. He prescribed an anti inflammatory and told me that it would fix it. I kept the prescription, but I didn't purchase it.
On Thursday, the chest pain and shortness of breath was unbearable, and so I went to the ER. After 9 hours of waiting and small tests, they told me nothing was visibly wrong and that I'm probably just anxious. But I know my body. I react to anxiety differently, and although I might have had the signs of an anxiety attack, I feel that it's a lot deeper than that. They did an ECG, blood work, and a urine sample. While in the waiting room I started to feel the numbness, and that is by far the most disturbing of my symptoms.
I went home with nothing to go on. On Friday, I couldn't sleep alone. I felt that I'd wake up in a shock whenever I fell asleep, and whenever I'd wake up I'd get an uncomfortable numbness on my right leg and arm. Sometimes it stretched to my head.
I mean, it can't be so strange that they can't figure it out?
Well, I went to sleep with a sharp pain under my armpit. It sort of felt like I sprained something. I put my arm as comfortably as I could. I woke up with a sharp pain on my shoulders, as though I had gotten hurt. This keeps getting weirder and weirder.
MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL
Hi
Thanks for writing to the forum!
There is a strong possibility it is costochondritis (inflammation of the joint between rib and sternum. The inflammation around the joint area gives sharp pain on taking a breath. This can also cause tenderness on pressing the area which pains. An orthopedic doctor can diagnose this for you. Pleuritis and Pulmonary embolism are other possibilities causing shortness of breath with chest pain. A CT scan of the chest can rule out both.
Chances are that you have esophageal reflux (GERD), where the food in your stomach is thrown up into your food pipe or esophagus. This also causes burning sensation or discomfort in the chest area. Another possibility is hiatal hernia, where a portion of stomach herniates into the chest cavity through the diaphragm. This along with chest discomfort cause shortness of breath too.
It is difficult to comment beyond this at this stage. Please discuss these possibilities with your doctor. Please let me know if there is any thing else and do keep me posted. Take care!
Thanks for writing to the forum!
There is a strong possibility it is costochondritis (inflammation of the joint between rib and sternum. The inflammation around the joint area gives sharp pain on taking a breath. This can also cause tenderness on pressing the area which pains. An orthopedic doctor can diagnose this for you. Pleuritis and Pulmonary embolism are other possibilities causing shortness of breath with chest pain. A CT scan of the chest can rule out both.
Chances are that you have esophageal reflux (GERD), where the food in your stomach is thrown up into your food pipe or esophagus. This also causes burning sensation or discomfort in the chest area. Another possibility is hiatal hernia, where a portion of stomach herniates into the chest cavity through the diaphragm. This along with chest discomfort cause shortness of breath too.
It is difficult to comment beyond this at this stage. Please discuss these possibilities with your doctor. Please let me know if there is any thing else and do keep me posted. Take care!
I'm agreeing with RockinCricket. If you have inflammation on your spine it can press on blood vessels and/or nerves that can cause numbness. Most likely it is in the thoracic area to cause numbness in your arm...The thoracic region can be thrown out of wack by spasms or tightness in the pectoral muscles in the chest. They are attached and when they get tight they can pull the spine out of alignment, thus "pinching" nerves and blood vessels.
If you pulled something the pain could seem to come on quite suddenly. You probably wouldn't feel it at the time, but after the lactic acid had a chance to build up, you would notice it quite suddenly. It would probably get even worse before it got better.
If that were the case anti-inflammatories would be a good thing. Inflammation causes pain which causes tension and cuts off blood supply...blah blah blah, to keep it simple, it's like a vicious cycle. If you stop the inflammation, not only do you stop the continuing damage, but you also give the body a chance to heal. Also alternating ice and heat on the mid back and the chest muscle affected would help increase oxygen to the area and greatly speeding up healing time. Keep the ice on for 7 - 15 minutes (no longer than 20 because it will begin to do the opposite of what you want it to do, constrict the blood vessels.) and keep the heat on for 5 minutes (no longer than 7 minutes because it will begin to cause inflammation.) The ice brings down inflammation and the heat opens the vessels increasing the healing oxygen among other things. Too long of either and you defeat the purpose.
On the other hand, numbness on one side of the body can mean stroke. However, since you are young and you mention no PFO, heart condition and no other symptoms like slurred speech or loss of ability to speak, dizziness, loss or change of vision, sudden headache or weakness, I seriously doubt you had a stroke or mini stroke.
This sounds to me to be an injury. It's pretty common for people to injure themselves and not know when or how they did it. Try sleeping on your back and side, because sleeping on your front can be hard on the neck. On my side, I like to put a pillow between my legs and hug a pillow between my arms. This allows for proper alignment of the spine, and if this problems is what it seems, then hugging a pillow will help put things back in the right place. Oh, and fill that prescription.
I hope this helps ease your mind. I wish your doctor would have spent more time explaining all of this to you and answering your questions so you wouldn't have had to go through all this worry, but hopefully this helps and now you know. Sorry you have been suffering and good luck. :)
If you pulled something the pain could seem to come on quite suddenly. You probably wouldn't feel it at the time, but after the lactic acid had a chance to build up, you would notice it quite suddenly. It would probably get even worse before it got better.
If that were the case anti-inflammatories would be a good thing. Inflammation causes pain which causes tension and cuts off blood supply...blah blah blah, to keep it simple, it's like a vicious cycle. If you stop the inflammation, not only do you stop the continuing damage, but you also give the body a chance to heal. Also alternating ice and heat on the mid back and the chest muscle affected would help increase oxygen to the area and greatly speeding up healing time. Keep the ice on for 7 - 15 minutes (no longer than 20 because it will begin to do the opposite of what you want it to do, constrict the blood vessels.) and keep the heat on for 5 minutes (no longer than 7 minutes because it will begin to cause inflammation.) The ice brings down inflammation and the heat opens the vessels increasing the healing oxygen among other things. Too long of either and you defeat the purpose.
On the other hand, numbness on one side of the body can mean stroke. However, since you are young and you mention no PFO, heart condition and no other symptoms like slurred speech or loss of ability to speak, dizziness, loss or change of vision, sudden headache or weakness, I seriously doubt you had a stroke or mini stroke.
This sounds to me to be an injury. It's pretty common for people to injure themselves and not know when or how they did it. Try sleeping on your back and side, because sleeping on your front can be hard on the neck. On my side, I like to put a pillow between my legs and hug a pillow between my arms. This allows for proper alignment of the spine, and if this problems is what it seems, then hugging a pillow will help put things back in the right place. Oh, and fill that prescription.
I hope this helps ease your mind. I wish your doctor would have spent more time explaining all of this to you and answering your questions so you wouldn't have had to go through all this worry, but hopefully this helps and now you know. Sorry you have been suffering and good luck. :)
Well I'm otherwise extremely healthy... I don't know why this happened at all. I wasn't anxious or overly exerting myself... I told my parents to bring me to the hospital, and they said no because it doesn't seem to be a big deal.
Hello: You know this kind of sounds like several different things here. The shortness of breath and chest pain [which hurt me right under the ribs and felt like a heart attack] sounds like gallstones. I would check that out. Now for the other part. With the numbness and shocking feeling --- it almost sounds like some warning signs for mini strokes, or maybe it's simply your siatic nerve? Do you have other pain besides chest? Sometimes you just have to go to your doctor and say it feels like this, could you check for this problem? Now it could also be a pulled muscle in your chest - that's very painful. Think about anything that you did directly before the onse to these symptoms. Sometimes retracing your steps turns on the "light" and you figure out what you did and can get to the problem. Good luck - let me know how you're doing soon.
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