Sometimes I wonder if chest pain isn't our body's way of telling us to STOP!!!! whatever we are doing and take a break....

My guess is that the reason you couldn't finish the stress test (and your legs were weak) is because you do have MG, not because there is anything wrong with your heart. It's probably the muscles on your chest WALL that are hurting, which would make sense, as MG affects skeletal muscles.

MG is probably hardest on the folks who are the most active - having to give up something that they love so much is quite difficult. You are going to have to allow yourself to fully grieve that loss (and you will probably find yourself pushing the limits in the meantime!).

It is vitally important that you learn as much as you can about recognizing the physical "signs" that your body is giving you - if a person with MG overdoes it and uses up all of the "juice" that allows the skeletal muscles to work, they will find themselves in a crisis situation from which they may not be able to recover.

If you use up all of the acetylcholine in your muscles, they will cease to function. The muscles that allow your lungs to expand and contract are one set of those muscles which are affected by MG. If you use up all of the ACh and they can't work, the ONLY thing that will save you is mechanical ventilation (a ventilator), and if you can't get to one in time, your brain will not get enough oxygen - and that's when the REAL trouble starts.

I'm not trying to scare you, but it is vitally important that someone like yourself - who is normally very physically active - understand that for a person with MG, too much exercise literally CAN kill you. Trying to push through to the "next level" isn't an option - the next level is the ICU.....

It's going to take time to adjust mentally to this new reality, and it's going to take time for you to "allow" yourself to take things easy. It's hard when we LOOK just fine to explain to people that we get tired from just a tiny amount of exertion. But you have to learn to listen to what your body is telling you, because those around you aren't going to be able to tell that things are getting bad just by looking at you.

Give yourself permission to be - for lack of a better word - lazy.

The good thing is that you have a NAME for what is causing your exhaustion - doctors always tell us, "You don't want to have this." Well, duh....

They don't understand that it is a RELIEF to know that we aren't imagining things, and that once we have a NAME for what is happening, we have a starting place. Yeah, this disease sucks big time, but at least we have a chance to talk to other people who can tell us what to expect and whether a particular symptom is "normal" or not. If you don't know what is wrong with you because it doesn't have a name, you're pretty much at sea - you can't learn more about it, because you don't know what "it" is.

The good news is that MG is not a fatal disease (as long as you pay attention to your body) - it is a chronic, manageable disease that is relatively pain-free. We don't lose brain function (although at night, we may find ourselves not thinking as clearly). Our bodies and our organs function "normally". That's not to say that it isn't a FRUSTRATING disease, but that's mostly because our brains are telling us that we should be out doing stuff, and our bodies tell us, "Hold on there...."

We're here to help you through - this is a GREAT bunch of folks, and I have certainly learned a lot in the short time since my diagnosis. Don't be afraid to ask questions - I guarantee you, there is always SOMEONE on here who can help you, no matter what you may be experiencing!