Chest Pain

Chest Pain Overview

Chest pain is a very difficult symptom to find a disease behind. That is because of the cryptic nature of the chest. There are many organs and anatomical structures located in the chest. Any issues with these structures can cause symptoms of chest pain that will be difficult to differentiate and specify which organ is the issue. In the chest you have two lungs, a heart, a wind pipe, a food pipe and multiple lymph and blood vessels. Any issues with any one of these structures and you will have chest pain. But our job here at Maui Urgent Care is to help you find out exactly what is going. We will list the emergency causes of chest pain, and the non-emergency causes of chest pain. If you can be as educated as possible on the issue and the various types of chest pains you and your doctor can ensure that you can figure exactly what is going on in your chest. But be wary. Even though you may be able to read online about the various different types of chest pain it is always best to see your doctor for consultation so that any sort of issues can be resolved. Many times we physicians can see a patient in the office and get a good guess as to the cause of the patients chest pain based on the symptoms. We physicians will get a history of the chest pain and do a detailed physical exam to ensure that we get everything as narrowed down to the specific organ that is the problem. But often times we need to run more test to ensure that we truly know what is going on with your chest. This can include electrical analysis, as well as imaging in order to ensure there is nothing emergent going on in your chest. If you have chest pain make sure to consult a physician after reading this site. If you have more questions then call us at our 24 hour number.

Chest Pain: Non-emergencies

Acid Reflux: This is the most common cause of chest pain. It is a pain that is caused by the acid in your stomach. Your stomach has acidic contents in its depths so that you can digest your food. It can break up steaks, hard candy, and whatever you throw at it. But that means that your stomach is a very powerful organ. Stomach acid can melt many things such as glass and various metals. That is what we are dealing with. Your body contains this stomach acid by blocking it off from the food pipe. Typical the food pipe leads to the stomach where you food is broken up. The stomach is walled off by a sphincter so that stomach acid does not bubble up and "reflux" or move backwards into the food pipe and burn it with its acidic contents. If you sphincter is not tightened then the stomach acid can reflux and cause burns to your food pipe causing chest pains that are pressure like, burning, and associated with an acidic, sour taste in your mouth. This can often times mimic chest pains caused by a heart attack. It is very difficult to differentiate without the use of tests specific to the heart. And it just so happens that the foods that cause acid reflux will also cause heart attacks in the long run. If you are having chest pains then get a consultation from a doctor. Sometimes we even guess wrong. But that is why we have test that can tell us physicians exactly what is going on even when we can't figure out your chest pain.

Achalasia: This is a disease that is characterized by spasm of the food pipe. Muscle spasms are like muscle cramps. And cramps hurt, right? If you have ever had a cramp in your leg it is absolutely debilitating. Now imagine having cramps in your chest. Yea, that's right, achalasia is a painful syndrome caused by cramps in your food pipe. Your food pipe is made of muscle that can propel food throughout your digestive tract. If that muscle cramps, just like any muscle, it can present exactly like a heart attack. Here is something that get doctors and patient alike all the time. Nitroglycerin is able to treat achalasia as well as heart attacks. So that makes it even harder to diagnose heart attacks based on therapy alone. Because of this fact nitroglycerin is not a reliable indicator if someone is having a heart attack. It is difficult to diagnose this disease unless you have a physicians help. The physician will do multiple test to make sure you are not having a heart attack. Often time you will have to be referred to the tummy doctors to get your diagnosis of achalasia. It is often treated with calcium channel blocker medication which can stop the crampy pains.

Chest Pain: Emergencies

Heart attacks: This is the one you have all been waiting for. Heart attacks are the number one killer of Americans period. It is a disease that comes with a mortality (death rate) of almost 50%. You really do not want to have one of these. It is accompanied with chest pain with characteristics of tightness, pressure, and discomfort. Sharp chest pain is not common with heart attacks. There can be associated symptoms of nausea, vomiting and abnormal sweating that accompany heart attacks. The pain can radiate to the jaw and the left or right arm. These are the classic symptoms of heart attacks. But we doctors have also classified a different set of symptoms that are known as the atypical chest pain symptoms. These frequently happen in diabetics, women, patients with COPD, and the elder. These include symptoms such as right sided chest pain, numbness in the arm and many more abnormal symptoms. This means that there is a small percentage of chest pains that could still be heart attacks that do not follow our physician textbooks. In essence that is why it is so imperative to see a physician. We are trained to do a set of tests that will make sure with 99% accuracy that you did not have a heart attack. We have developed these test because we know that we can make errors if we just guess. If you have questions about chest pain then call us today.