My left arm has been slightly numb for about a week. The last 3 days it’s been growing more acute. I’ve switched shoulders that carry my laptop case and try not to sleep on my left side. Still numb.
So, I decided to call a doctor and made an appointment for this afternoon, after I get off work.
Why don’t I rush down now? Panic? I’m 45 years old and smoke cigars, 3 of my friends, two older, one younger all have had myocardial infarctions within the last 3 months. So I should be very alert and dashing to the ER even as we speak, right?
It’s because I’ve had 2, count 'em two heart attack scares in my adult life. Once was a bruised spleen from a fall 2 days previous. The 2nd time was a mysterious chest pain with shortness of breath with pain shooting up from both hands that turned out to be caused by a bruised rib.
In all the tests and x-rays and ultrasounds and MRI’s they’ve never even found a hint of blockage, high blood pressure or even too much cholesterol.
So screw it, if I go into cardiac arrest before 3:30 pm you’ll see a thread in GQ asking for CPR steps.
I hope it turns out to be nothing serious again, but if I were you I wouldn’t wait to get it checked out. You have a lot more to lose by under-reacting to a heart attack than by over-reacting to some minor injury.
Your family would be better off if you kicked at work anyway. Double insurance payoff and all. At least that’s what Mr. K says. “Honey, if you see me on the floor clutching my chest, throw me in the back of the pick-up and dump me on the dock at work!”
I shall abide by his wishes.
(All levity aside…Hope you’re ok. Go see doctor. When come back, bring good report.)
BMalion, I can think of a hundred mundane things it could possibly be, but the few serious things it could be could damn well kill you. Call your supervisor & go. Its not like you called out sick…you worked most of the day. Would you do that if you were gold-bricking?
Go! Shoo! Go!
During a heart attack, pain in the left arm is a common symptom.
"The pain is quite distinct. It is described as: a heavy, strangulating, suffocating experience-far more intense than anything like indigestion, chest wall injuries, pleurisy or spasms of the esophagus that you are familiar with. The pain may seem to start under the breastbone, on the left side of the chest, and sometimes radiates out to other places: throat, neck, jaw, **left shoulder and arm ** and, occasionally, on to the right side."
Now that BMalion is gone, I can mention my brother. He thought he was having bad heartburn and tried to ignore the pain for probably half a day. Ended up being a heart attack and part of his heart is dead.
I get something of a strained feeling in my left arm when I walk for a while, or up hill (what is it–exertional angina?), and even when I eat. I did have a clean stress test though.
Great, now we get to sit here and worry about you! Please be okay, or I will introduce you to the manager of the store upstairs who has the Kewpie-doll voice.
Actually, I should introduce you, because she’s cute and smart and apparently all the guys in the mall are falling all over her, even with the little baby-doll voice. So be okay, or I WON’t introduce you!
In the heart of downtown, darlin’! Unfortunately, I think the blonde cutie has a boyfriend…either that or the guy at Panera with her the other morning is another of her stalkers…it’s amazing how the men flock to her, and quite elderly men, too! One guy is 75 and comes in to complain to me that she won’t go to dinner with him.
