I was driving to work a few houts ago to check my work schedule for next week when I suddenly felt an intense stabbing pain in the right side of my chest. It was there and gone after a second. I thought nothing of it at first, but then it happened four more times over the next couple minutes. By the time I made it to work I hadn’t had any more stabbing pains, but I was starting to feel pain on the other side of my chest and my right armpit. My pulse was about 100/minute and I was starting to get scared. I decided to turn around and drive to urgent care, but I got caught in rush hour traffic and it was starting to feel worse, so I turned around and drove to St. Joseph’s hospital in Tacoma.
They’ve x-rayed me and done an EKG, and working on blood cultures. I’m lying in a hospital bed right now hooked up to a heart monitor waiting to hear what’s going on with me. Pain is still there but not as intense as an hour ago.
I barely have any bars in here so my ability to check this thread may be sporadic. Will post again as soon as I know more.
The doctor says the preliminary results from my physical show no signs of heart attack, angina, tuberculosis, pneumonia, injured heart or lungs, or anything else major at this time. I’m running a mild fever and I have slightly elevated blood pressure, and I was showing symptoms of mild dehydration. They gave me some kind of pill (not sure what it was) and ran an IV before discharging me. The doctor said there are a number of things that could have caused the initial chest pains and the subsequent pain which could be signs of something i’ll want to get checked out for, but nothing requiring immediate attention - they’re going to run more tests tomorrow to double-check, and they want me to get a follow-up with my regular doctor in the next week. In the meanwhile, i’m supposed to rest and call them if the stabbing pains recur.
So thankfully, it seems, the worst thing to come out of this episode will be the bill (which, based on my insurance, should be between $100 and $1,000, hopefully closer to the former than the latter). I was almost certain I was having a genuine heart attack, especially because i’m in a high-risk category for one and it certainly felt intense. I’m still feeling some mild pain now, but it’s dissipated and it seems to be going away.
I’m going home and ordering a pizza - I’ve missed lunch and dinner today and I am now starving
I’m so happy that you weren’t having a heart attack. I’m now wondering if you had a panic attack. Stress could cause that. I used to have panic attacks and thought that I was going to die because of all of the physical sympthoms.
Stress, work, traffic…all of these things could work together to set your “fight or flight” response off.
Chest pain on the RIGHT side isn’t a heart attack, unless you have dextrocardia.
It could be intercostal cramping from dehydration, it could be indigestion from eating crap, like pizza, or any number of other things for minor to serious, but not likely a heart attack.
I agree it’s not the most common way for heart pain to present, but I have heard from heart attack patients who did report right sided chest pain - especially females, who often have weird symptoms with heart disease.
Smapti: Good job taking it seriously and having it checked out. Too many people try to ignore scary symptoms until it becomes something awful.
Didn’t you just the other day have an abscessed tooth? Be sure to mention it - it can lead to endocarditis, though presumably that would have been detected.
