Introduction
Chest pain is any sort of pain felt in your upper body, from your jaw down to the bottom of your ribs. It is the sensation of chest pain, pressure, squeezing occurring due to ischemia of heart muscles from spasm of coronary arteries. Chest pain can occur due to many different problems. Crushing and burning sensations are witnessed during chest pain.
Causes of Chest Pain
Following are the causes of chest pain:
- Heart Related Causes : This can include Heart attack, angina (chest pain due to poor blood flow), aortic dissection, pericarditis (inflammation of sac surrounding the heart). Chest pain can also be due to a sudden blockage of a coronary (heart) artery.
- Digestive causes : This type of chest pain can occur due to various digestive system related problems such as Heartburn, Swallowing disorders and Gallbladder or pancreas problem. Muscle and bone causes: These are mostly injury related causes and arises due to Sore muscles, Costochondritis and Injured ribs. Lung related causes: This may include Collapsed lung, Pleurisy, Pulmonary embolism and pulmonary hypertension.
- Other causes : Panic attack and Shingles (caused due to chicken pox virus reactivation).
These are some of the major causes that leads to chest pain.
Symptoms of Chest Pain
Some major symptoms of this painful disorder are the following:
There are two different categories of symptoms:
Symptoms That Arise Out Of Heart Related Chest Pain
- Pressure fullness or burning or tightness in the chest
- Frequent summing and going of pain
- Intense pain while breathing or coughing
- Sour taste of food
- Continuous pain for many hours
Symptoms That Arise Out Of Other Chest Pain
- Trouble swallowing
- Tenderness when you push the chest
- Nausea or vomiting
- Cold sweats
- Dizziness or weakness
Diagnosis of Chest Pain
The initial way to diagnose chest pain is to go through physical examination and conducting patient history.
In case of severe symptoms, following techniques are adopted:
- Angiogram : This is done for detection of any blockages in the arteries.
- MRI : This is done to examine any kind of damage to heart or aorta.
- Stress test : To measure the functioning if the heart after doing some kind of work out.
- Chest X-ray : This is done to check complete interrelated system that is heart lungs and blood vessels.
- Blood tests : This test is done to measure certain types of enzyme levels.
- Electrocardiogram : In this particular method, electrical activity of heart is measured.
So these are some of the diagnosis methods that is used to check if there is any kind of problem that is severe.