Is it heart related or anxiety??

[Emmy09]

Hello everyone. I'm a 24 year old female. I have normal blood pressure and don't have diabetes or any known heart related issues. For the past 3 weeks I've been experiencing off and on chest pain and the left side and tightness. The tightness feels like there is a rubber band around my chest on my rib area. And I also get pain in my back and center of my abdomen and some mornings wake up with my heart racing at over 100bpm. I've gone to the ER twice in the last two weeks and both times they did an EKG, blood test, and chest x Ray and said everything was normal and diagnosed me with musculoskeletal chest wall pain. Well it isn't going away and now for the past few days I've been somewhat having difficulty breathing, not shortness of breath just feels like I can't breath as deeply as usual and I feel extremely fatigued, tired and dizzy. I know I'm young and they said everything is fine but I'm really nervous that I might be having a heart attack in the near future and I'm scaring myself (reading symptoms online sure doesn't help). Has anyone else experienced anything like this? I don't know if it's anxiety or if I really should get it checked out again. My primary physician is sending me to a cardiologist but it might be a few weeks so I just needed some advice.  Thank you!

[Entropy]

I went through the exact same thing, got all the tests done and everything came back normal. It's really scary, but if you've been under significant anxiety than this is probably related to stress. I was having chest pains for about two months and I could swear I was having a heart attack several times.

 See the cardiologist and get it officially ruled out, but remember that anxiety and stress can really really make you feel that bad, and considering you're 24 the chances you have CAD or anything serious with your heart is rare. I'm 25 so I'm in a very similar situation as you, feel free to pm me or follow up if you have any questions, I'm pretty much an expert after all the time I spent on google haha.

[Agora1]

Hi Emmy09,  The ER told you true.  There is something called musculoskeletal chest wall pain which does feel like a tight band around the upper ribs and back making it feel like you can't expand your lungs in order to take a deep breathe.  It's not your lungs that you can't expand, it's your diaphragm.  It is so tight from always being anxious.  Hot baths are good to relax the muscles as well as using relaxation and deep breathing exercises 2-3 time a day.  Unless you have Fibromyalgia or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, the anxiety is causing the fatigue, tiredness and dizzy feeling.  Once you start working on relaxing your body, your taking a deep breathe won't be such a chore.

[Wisdom23]

I’ve had similar symptoms for a couple years now! I’ve had a lot of family and relationship stress over these years and it’s weird as everything seems normal but hard to get deep breath while playing sports or lifting things since the tension is there all the time. The relaxation techniques is key doing them every day to get body off that on edge feeling. Same thing told it’s stress and anxiety.