I’ve heard this once or twice in real life, and several times on TV/in movies: worried that they’re having a heart attack, a sufferer of chest pains rushes to the hospital. Much to their embarrassment (and vast relief!) they discover the pain was caused by gas.
How does that happen? I know it does, occasionally I get those knify pains near my ribs when I have gas, so I’m not surprised anyone would worry if they got them higher up near their heart. The gas is created in the intestines, though, isn’t it? How does it get out and cause pains in other parts of the body? I assume it can permeate the intestinal walls if it’s truly a gas, but how does enough of it meet up outside the intestines to cause a pain in small part of the body? (I’m working on the assumption that there must be some concentration, given if there needn’t be there’d be pain all over when it escaped. Wrong?)
And what causes gas anyway, fermentation of foods we’ve eaten?
Visceral pain (that relating to the organs inside the chest and abdomen and even pelvis) tends to be poorly localized, just because of the nature of the nerve fibers enervating those areas.
So often pain arising from the colon may be felt in the back or chest, while pains from the heart itself may be felt in the neck or arm or stomach, to name a few sites.
And what is described as ‘gas’ pains may range from dilated loops of bowel, to reflux of the stomach contents into the esophagus. And esophageal burning or spasm can definitely cause pain in the chest, among other locations.
Most gas is swallowed air. Some may be produced by the bacteria in the colon by its action on food, but that rarely gets belched out.
From the “been there done that” side of the universe I would agree with Qadgop the Mercotan. What is happening is erosion of the esophagus from reflux. If you eat something that’s going to cause problems then what you have is acid in the stomach causing pain in the esophagus. Gas simply adds pressure to the organs. As you bend over while sitting you are shoving everything up causing acid reflux. Extra body mass adds to this as does slouching. The pain can radiate through the chest as if you are having a heart attack. It doesn’t even have to be food. Stress can trigger acid in the stomach and thus pain in the esophagus. Once there is some erosion it’s like an open sore.
In my case I use to consume a lot of anti-acids which in turn probably created kidney stones. It didn’t take long after that to start eating right.