Chest pains, palpitations...Heart Attack???

[thaduck1]

Hi

i am a 20yr old male, 6ft 1 16 stone never smoked, i am not a stressed person i work in front of a computer 8 hours a day which is a fairly easy job

For 6 weeks now i have been having sometimes severe chest pains. this is mainly on the left side of my chest but can sometimes move to the centre or the right side. it is like a sharp shooting pain or can rarely be a crushing type pressure feeling. this does not happen with any specific move it can happen when i am just sitting down or excercising it does not matter.

I also have had a few palputations, in which my heart seems to speed up considerably and thump harder than ususal, this is not painfull just extremely scary and disstressing, this is again not brought on by anything specific but leaves me with the feeling that i am going to die

I have been spent two nights in hospital (two seperate occasions, the first was 2 weeks in the second was five weeks in) the both times they did an ekg, blood tests, xray, blood prussure and pulse and all came back perfectly normal, but i recieved no answers to why this was happening to me, the only answer i really got was that i may have a chest infection in which they prescribed me antibiotics that have not seemed to ease the symptoms

i am scheduled for a treadmill test and a 24 hr monitor on wednesday

i just have a few questions

Am i to young to have an heart attack???

this has been going on for just iver 6 weeks, if it was life threatining wouldn something have happened to me by now??

Could a chest infection last this long, and cause these symptoms

Thanks

Ryan

[Taggart]

Hey Ryan, I hope you got to the bottom of the problem and found everything was alright.

Unfortunately, I've heard of young people having heart attacks, so I don't think there's necessarily an age when it couldn't happen. Also, I think that someone could have symptoms for some time without having an actual event of a heart attack.

I'm glad to hear you went for the testing and monitoring.

[The right way]

From what I have studied there is definately no age limit but don't scare yourself into one either. Look into family history if you can and demand more testing and find out what is going on. Take a record of what you are doing when it happens.
In another thread I wrote that a friend of mine found she had something similar to a heart murmur but it was slightly different. It started when she was born supposedly but just started showing it's ugly head (probably from age) and she found out what it was by asking for a monitor that she was to wear for a week and keep a record of her activities. Now that she knows what it is she just has to be careful and work with it.
Don't worry, just keep on it and ask for a specialist's opinion. And yes sometimes warning signs can go on long before something serious happens because the problem could be building up to something and this might take time before it is very serious. Many have warnings but think it is gas or stress, even a pulled muscle in the chest. When I was a WCB First Aider I had a guy lay down on the job with tears in his eyes scared silly. I felt his chest and told him he was ok. Turned out one side of his chest was hard as a rock and the other side was not. He had a regular pulse (slightly raised of course because of his fear) and what had happened is he went to jump on his forklift and pulled his shest muscle because he made the move so suddenly that it would not let go. He went to the hospital of course where they verified my story and sent him home for the rest of the day. This muscle bothered him for days after but he was ok and still is doing fine. Part of my theory might also be that he is a very stressed out kind of guy and that might have added to his event. Now he is doing a whole different type of work and feels much better.

[Marg]

Ryan, regarding your chest pains.
I was wondering if you are getting enough exercise sitting at a computer all day can cause all kinds of problems. How often do you get up and move around or stretch?
I have heard of getting tennis elbow and carpal tunnel from computer use and your chair should be comfortable and you should sit properly. If you go online you may be able to get advice on what you may be doing wrong. Does your company have information on proper posture proper height etc. at the computer.