Anyone get these? About 15 seconds of weakness in the upper back and upper arms coupled with tightness in the chest. All resulting in driving one to their knees…then it passes.
Used to only happen when I was hardcore doing a no carb diet…nowadays my diet isn’t that restrictive
No, see a doctor, go to the emergency room!
Seriously. This might be an emergency. Seek help. Please.
Here’s hoping you’re already at the ER.
What you describe could be angina pains, and a precursor to an actual full on heart attack.
Sure, it may not be. But you can’t know that until you get it checked out. If you aren’t experiencing it when you’re actually at the ER, then get to a heart doctor who can do a stress test.
Years ago I experienced intermittent episodes of unstable angina. Since the episodes didn’t kill me, I thought maybe I had GERD. One or more of the episodes of unstable angina caused damage to my heart muscle, therefor being actual heart attacks. So, yeah, you can have intermittent heart attacks.
All that said, the OP should seek a definitive diagnosis to his problem.
You’ve been given warnings. Some people don’t get warnings, they just drop dead.
“Nearly half of first heart attack patients will die from that event…”
Don’t try to convince yourself this isn’t serious. It might not be, or it might be fatal.
From your OP it sounds like this has been something that you’ve been living with for an extended period of time. It may be a miracle that you’ve survived for even this long. Luck runs out, though. Get thee to a physician!
I really hope this is some weird joke but, no, of course this is not normal. I’ve had ectopic heart beats that the doctor has long told me not to worry about, but are annoying as hell, but this doesn’t sound anything like that. This sounds serious and, even if perchance it isn’t, it’s not normal and needs to be checked out.
Dale?
Whats the diff between ectopic heartbeat and palpitations? I had what I thought were palpitations a while back. (Skipped heartbeat. You could actually feel it when i took my pulse. ) Went away on its own but alarmed my general doc enough when she was giving me an office reading that she sent me to do a stress test with iodine…nothing showed up.
Ectopic heartbeat issues refer to the heart going out of rhythm for a bit, for example, skipping a beat. Palpitations is just an uncomfortable feeling of your heart beating, and can happen even if your heart rhythm stays completely normal.
Palptiations will often happen after a skipped heartbeat, as your heart is speeding up quickly to make up for the missed beat.
I’m glad you’ve had some tests before. But, still, if it’s so bad it’s causing you to keel over for a bit, then you really need to get it checked. It may be caused by problems with your heart rhythm, rather than any pending heart attack. Or it could be that your small heart flutter is combining with some bad heart stuff.
Don’t rely on old data. Talk with your doctor about this keeling over symptom, and get it checked out anew.
When I had a heart attack scare a few years ago (60ish male, woke up in the middle of the night with pain in my left chest - turned out to be muscle strain) the paramedics, the ER staff, the cardiologist, and my own doctor all told me to NEVER hesitate to call 911 or go to ER with any possible heart attack symptoms. They would rather waste a bit of time dealing with this than deal with a too late response to a real attack.
There have been radio PSAs here lately saying just that, featuring an (alleged) EMT saying he’d rather roll to a false alarm and have a quick, pleasant conversation than arrive too late when someone kicked it because they’d be embarrassed calling in when they didn’t need to.
“What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.” Doesn’t apply here. Doctor now!
My doctor still kids me about my visit to cure heartburn during exercise that ultimately resulted in 5 bypasses. I’m lucky to have not had the attack.
Go see a a cardiologist now, please.
Yeah, I called 911 for chest pain that turned out to be esophageal spasms. I felt silly, and apologized to the 911 crew, but they firmly assured me is done the right thing.
Talk to your doc. If your GP doesn’t seem concerned enough, go to a heart specialist (but make sure he’s on your insurance plan). My ex had occasional arrhythmia for several years following a bout of altitude sickness. He was closely monitored and ended up having surgery to zap the nerve that was doing all the dancing. He had lots of scary warnings, and eventually also had a heart attack but he was able to recognize it due to his experience with the arrhythmia and got help right away. He has recovered.
Ooooh yeah.
A few months back, we learned that the phrase “chest pain”, when spoken to an ER checkin clerk, will get you seen RIGHT AWAY.
**Dweezil **(my 24 year old son) had been sick that day. He threw up, then took a nap. When he woke up, he had a headache - and his chest ached. Lots of liquid (he was almost certainly dehydrated), and some ibuprofen, took care of the headache - but the chest didn’t feel any better.
So he called the nurse line - and they recommended he go to the ER. Well, really, I guess they kinda had to; a 24 year old having a heart attack might be rare, but it CAN happen.
So we walked in, they called him over to do the intake paperwork, and when he said “chest pain” the clerk was typing info in with one hand while the other picked up the phone to call someone about it. He was whisked back 30 seconds later. By the time I got through his paperwork, he’d already had an EKG and bloodwork started.
Not surprisingly, they didn’t find anything cardiac. The doctor suggested it might be pleuritis; I had been worried that in hurling, he had perhaps torn his esophagus (she said no, he’d have been a LOT sicker if that had happened). I personally think it was a muscle strain vs pleuritis since he had nothing respiratory going on - but the treatment (anti-inflammatories) was the same, so it didn’t matter.
Yeah, when I went in to the doc and mentioned chest pain, a lot of obstructions just melted away.
Ended up with two stents and feel much better.