Strange thing happens when I sneeze.

[Mojoed]

Whenever I sneeze, I feel this awful pain starting in my chest around the sternum, moving through my shoulders and eventually down to the opposite side of my elbows. The pain is kinda hard to explain, but I'll do my best. It's like a super-intense, dull, pressure kind of pain, sort of like a slush 'brain freeze' but spanning a much larger area. When I sneeze, it takes approximately 5 seconds for the pain to reach my middle arm area where it stops. The pain last anywhere from 10 seconds to about a minute, and during this time I usually sit motionless doing what I can to wait it out. When it subsides, it's like it never happened.

For years, I've stupidly been putting off going to the doctor for several ailments, but this one is getting worse. I've avoided doctors for years in fear of what I'd hear. Stupid stupid stupid, I know. Anyway I finally made a doctors appointment for this, which is in a couple of weeks. In the meantime I figured I'd ask you guys your opinions or thoughts on what may be the cause. I'm feeling pretty nervous about this.

Thanks.

 

[Schadenfroh]

you need to get an EKG

 

[her209]

And yet you still haven't gone to the doctor. :shakes head;

 

[amol]

WRONG WEBSITE!

Go here . . . .

 

[Injury]

It could be that your lung capacity is so great that the force of your lungs expanding rapidly during the "wind-up" is tightening the muscles in your chest in a peculiar way, causing nearby muscles to react accordingly.

 

[MithShrike]

Yeah I have something sort of similar. When I sneeze I get a sharp pain in my chest and a very dull pain in my left arm. I'm thinking they are cardiac "incidents." Now, I told my doctor about it and he just burst out laughing. Well, isn't that great?

 

[Mojoed]

Originally posted by: Injury
It could be that your lung capacity is so great that the force of your lungs expanding rapidly during the "wind-up" is tightening the muscles in your chest in a peculiar way, causing nearby muscles to react accordingly.

I hope it's something like that. I'm praying it's not my heart.

---

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
you need to get an EKG

I had an EKG in 2000 before I had my back surgery. The report said something like, "slight prominence of the heart, borderline". They retested at a different angle afterwards and I guess it turned out fine because I heard nothing of it. I'll inquire about another EKG, thanks.

 

[Mojoed]

Originally posted by: Mith
Yeah I have something sort of similar. When I sneeze I get a sharp pain in my chest and a very dull pain in my left arm. I'm thinking they are cardiac "incidents." Now, I told my doctor about it and he just burst out laughing. Well, isn't that great?

Wow, he actually laughed at you? That would piss me off. I hope that doesn't happen to me. Thanks for the information.

 

[Wag]

Alien embryo trying to get out.

 

[C'DaleRider]

Geez, I'm really starting to think that ATOT is full of young hypochrondriacs.

In young people, cardiac "incidents" lead to rather quick death. A cardiac infarction in a young person, like under 30 or so, usually means rather quick death, unlike the typical heart attack most people are familiar with....the crushing pain in the chest, radiating pain into the left arm (not always the case, but "typical"), shortness of breath, pallor, sweating, etc., etc., that is seen in the older segments of the population.

Now why would this be the case, one wonders? It is very simple.....the "typical" heart attack we've all heard of is due usually to plaque or clto buildup in the coronary arteries. This takes place very slowly and gradually over decades. This gives the heart time to compensate by developing something called collateral circulation.....the development of very small arteries from above the blockage in an attempt to build circulation around the slowly blocking artery.....sort of a "natural" bypass graft, if you will.

Young people have no time to develop this collateral circulation, so if the coronary artery ever blocks off suddenly, usually the heart goes into a ventricular fibrillation, and the complete lack of cardiac output from a fibrillating heart means quick death. This is why you see young people dying fast from coronary incidents.....athletes come to mind as the most seen. The kid has a congential defect in the heart.....a bad valve or ventricular septal defect or the like......has a sudden incident and dies within minutes despite any action taking place to save him or her.