Last week I went to the ER with chest pain. It felt as though my chest was being squeezed along the left side of my ribs to my shoulder blade and then across my chest. They admitted me and ran a lot of tests, EKG, echo cariogram, cadiac cath, blood tests. They let me go with five new prescriptions and told me to follow up with my rheumatologist. I'll also be seeing a cardiologist in a little over two weeks. Anyway, all tests appear to be normal except that during the cathererization, my heart went into a muscle spasm. So, I'm somewhat confused and don't know why they wanted me to see my rheumatologist.

Has this happened to anyone else? I don't have a prior history of heart trouble, but I have had anxiety induced chest pain before.

Any info will be greatly appreciated.
Ellena

Have you done any activities that might have set off some severe muscle spasms?

Some of us on the thoracic outlet forum have had severe chest muscles spasms and/or the inter coastal nerve gets irritated and can cause a feeling like that.
Many have gone to ER and had all the tests for heart and come out as OK.
But it has to be checked out to be sure...

Do any of your upper back, neck or chest muscles feel very tight or locked up??
If it is and lasts days/weeks then it is most likely a spasm.

No activities that I can think of that would have caused the spasms, but then I've been having a lot of muscle spasm problems since last Sept. and have attributed those to FMS. And, I always have tight muscles in the neck and shoulder, and across the chest. Its funny you mention TOS. A number of years ago, one of the doctors I saw suggested TOS may be my problem, but no one has mentioned anything since then.

Ellena

You might want to go check out our TOS forum then and see if the info there fits for you, quite a few have TOS and FMS.

post number 1 in the useful sticky on the TOS forum has some " crash course " links about TOS

I suffer from chest pain from time to time. Whether it's caused by my FMS or not I don't know. But I do know that when they first started is was pretty scary. I went to the ER too. Then the next time I went straight to an urgent care facility. Neither one was able to help me, and eventually I just started dealing with it on my own. Not because I wanted to, but I really didn't know any other option. I sincerely hope that if this happens to you again, you can find some answers and get it fixed. Good luck, Ellena.

Idealist

Idealist,
Thanks for the information. I've been to the ER twice for chest pain over a period of two and a half years. I don't know what the doctors think as I haven't seen the records yet. Thanks for the good wishes, Ellena