What can causes chest pain

 Chest Pain

What it feels like: varies from a dull ache, to tenderness, to a sharp, searing pain anywhere in the chest.

What can make it worse: swallowing, coughing, deep breathing, movement, cold weather, sexual intercourse, anxiety, eating.

What can make it better: food, antacids, nitroglycerin, rest, massage of the painful area.

Your Doctor Visit

What your doctor will ask you about: heart palpitations, anxiety, depression, light-headedness, numbness or tingling in your hands or around your mouth, fever, chills, sweating, coughing, coughing up blood or mucus, feeling short of breath, tenderness, trouble swallowing,

nausea, vomiting, swelling or pain in the legs, changes in weight, pregnancy, smoking. Your doctor will also want to know if you’ve ever had a stress test (usually an electrocardiogram [EKG] while exercising on a treadmill), or have been treated for heart trouble with medications or heart surgery.

Your doctor will want to know if you or anyone in your family has had any of these conditions: lung disease, asthma, chest surgery or injury, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, elevated levels of cholesterol or fat in the blood, angina, phlebitis, emotional problems, obesity, congestive heart failure, heart attack, smoking.

Your doctor will do a physical examination including the following: temperature, weight, blood pressure, pulse, listening to your chest with a stethoscope, listening to your heart with a stethoscope, examining your legs for tenderness, warmth, or swelling, electrocardiogram.

WHAT CAN CAUSE CHEST PAIN, AND WHAT IS TYPICAL FOR EACH CAUSE?

1. Chest wall ache: - Pain in the chest wall.
Tenderness in the chest wall, often worsening with movement or deep breathing, and possibly resulting from injury or a bout of violent coughing.

2. Rib fracture: - A crack in one of the ribs. 

Tenderness over the fracture, often accompanied by the sound or sensation of grating and crackling.

3. Neck pain: -  Pain in the neck that radiates to the chest.

Chest or arm pain that worsens when moving or putting pressure on the neck.

4. Heartburn: - Also known as GERD (Gastro Esophageal Reflux Disease), the movement of stomach acid up into and through esophagus, which connects the throat to the stomach; can lead to ulcer.

Burning upper abdominal pain, worse when lying flat or bending over, particularly soon after meals, relieved by antacids or sitting – upright.

5. Ulcer: - Severe irritation of the stomach or intestinal lining.

 Burning upper abdominal pain that is worse when lying down, sometimes relieved by antacids and made worse by aspirin or drugs such as ibuprofen.

6. Angina pectoris: - Sudden spasms of chest pain caused by lack of oxygen to the heart muscles.

Chest pain behind the breastbone, aggravated by exertion and relieved by rest; pain may radiate to the left arm.

7. Heart attack: - Blockage in one of the arteries feeding the heart leading to death of part of the heart muscle.

Severe, often crushing pain, behind the breastbone, sometimes with sweating, nausea, or vomiting

8. Pneumothorax: - “Collapsed lung”: an accumulation of air between the lungs chest wall.

Sudden onset of breathing difficulties, sharp chest and pain.

9. Pericarditis: - Inflammation of the sac surrounding the heart.

Pain over the heart or behind the breastbone, often aggravated by deep breathing, coughing, or movement.

10. Lung tumor: - Cancer of the lungs.

Changes in coughing patterns, coughing up blood, chest ache, more common in smokers.

11. Esophageal cancer: - Abnormal cell growth in the esophagus.
Feeling like food “sticks” in the throat or causes pain, weight loss, malnutrition.