Left Chest Pains & other symptoms - no diagnosis help
 

For the past 3 or so years (I'm 39), I've been having random left chest area discomfort, to the point where sometimes I feel like my left arm is losing feeling. There's been some periods where my chest is twitching, but no pain. This past weekend, my chest was twitching for about two days on and off for long period of time. Today, I'm experiencing left chest area discomfort, and not really painful, but it is bothersome, I feel fatigued and had minor headache. About 3 years ago (for the same issues), I did go to a cardiology clinic and had a stress tests, an imaging tests (EKG I believe), and I had to wear some kind of monitor for a week. The only thing they found was some "isolated PVCs." My blood pressure is usually normal, but at times, its high/borderline when I go in to the doctor. There are times at night largely, when I'll be laying in bed or partially asleep and it feels like my whole body is moving... or that my heart is racing. I went in for an eye exam recently and mentioned there are times when I lose vision in my left eye largely for periods of under an hour. This doesn't happen often and usually seems to be associated with stress and/or elevated by it. Same thing with the chest discomfort, but its really hard to tell. In addition to that, I do get a fluttering in the ear, the majority of the time I believe its in the left, however, yesterday I was getting it in the right ear for a short period of time. Also, relatively often, when I'm trying to sleep, if I lay on my left side of the head, there's a heart beat/swooshing sound, physical feeling that prohibits me from laying on that side, sometimes it goes to the right side/both sides and I have to sleep on my back, but largely, it's the left (exacerbated with elevated stress levels). For the past couple months or so, I've been noticing that my resting breathing and walking breathing is that I'm breathing more heavily too, which concerns me. I started taking Claritin during about the same period which I'm wondering if that could be the cause. I'm considering asking my doctor to refer me back to the cardiologist, because they've never found anything wrong with the normal tests they are given, but the discomfort bothers me and the losing feeling part too. I sometimes think maybe its muscular from exercise, but my right chest area never experiences it. I exercise at least 3 - 4 times weekly, I eat pretty healthily and I juice (veggies/fruits), take some, not much protein supplements. I have been prescribed ambien (take only once in a while as needed), Fioracet for severe headaches (maybe four times monthly), and take Ibuprofen 800MG (as needed) for back pains. I used to smoke cigs, but I wasn't a heavy smoker, and on occasion/social, I do have one, probably less than a pack a month. Any advice you could give/thoughts would be appreciated! I am 73" tall and approx 180 pounds and consider myself to be in relatively good physical condition, minus my lower back and some neck issues. Should I request an angiogram/am I a good candidate? The radiation things I've been hearing worries me. Also, I've noticed when I flex the left chest muscle there is more pain/discomfort. I hope it is my no kidding chest muscle, but since it keeps coming back for years, and the side symptoms, I am really concerned that something is being overlooked. Appreciate your time/advice.

Thanks

Johnny

Welcome to Neurotalk:

I have to wonder about your diet... are you vegetarian?
Do you have Omega-3's in your diet? Flax oil, or fish?

Have you had your B12 measured? This losing vision...did you have an angiogram of your retina? Blood flow in the eye, is very sensitive to inflamed arteries. The temporal arteries can get inflamed and cause problems with the eye, and the sounds you hear in the ear. I had a stroke in my left eye about a decade ago and the eye doctor was very on top of that.

Low B12 will result in elevated homocysteine which can affect the small vessels in the eye before the other larger ones in the body. Homocysteine inflames the lining of the blood vessels and eventually causes heart attacks and strokes.

So I think you should have B12 tested, and tests for temporal arteritis. Are you lifting weights? If so I'd stop for now and see if things change. Lifting puts huge strains on blood vessels in the head.

Welcome J Wolf22. :Wave-Hello:

I just went for a routine eye exam and he did a bunch of tests that seemed to be able to show my vessels in my eye (there was some images taken), but not sure that it was an angiogram. He checked my coratid arteries when I spoke to him about the loss of vision thing and said they seemed find with his stethoscope. He recommended I get some cardiology tests done since it had been a few years and that loss of vision could indicate not getting blood flow. That being said, the vision loss thing is much less frequent than the chest pains, which is my primary concern. I threw a lot of symptoms in there to maybe see if they are related.

I actually probably am not getting as much omega 3 as I should, I used to take supplements of fish oil and also take flax seed but haven't in quite some time. I will start taking again and see what happens.

Does it sound like an angiogram for my heart may be in order or to request it? Is the radiation a concern? I read somewhere that normal tests like EKGs or Cs, may not show if there is a condition of hardened arteries in the back of the hard or something to that nature.

Thanks much for posting this up and also for the replies.

Also, I meant to mention that no, I'm not a vegetarian. My diet typically consists of white meat chicken, turkey, sometimes red meat, some greens, black beans/beans, avacado, red potatoes, sometimes whole wheat/pastas, Greek yogurt, eggs, juice (beets, carrots, parsley, apples, spinach, celery, some lemon/lime), a smoothie (mainly fruits with some yogurt, protein supp, honey, banana, Apple type). During the weekend on one of the days, I will usually have something more indulgent, some slices of pizza or something, a few beers, but try to balance it out with something more healthy the next day.

I saw mention of neck pain & back pain?
Can you describe those and locations?

Some of the arm /chest/headache stuff might be related to the neck pain - you might have tight muscles or even trigger points & spasms.
This could be related to weight lifting and/or maybe your job if it is desk or repetitive?

[ heart beat/swooshing sound ]
I had this quite severely during my muscle spasms w/ RSI/TOS..
and also had inter-coastal muscle spasms that nearly felt like a heart problem..

check out the sticky threads on our TOS forum for more info -
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/forum24.html