Are you frequently getting sharp chest or stomach pains recently? You might be having something mild like gastritis or it can be something more life threatening like a heart attack. It is extremely important to know some details about your chest pain which can make it easy for your doctors to diagnose and treat you accordingly.
When you meet a doctor for chest or stomach pain, these are some common questions you will be asked to narrow down the diagnosis.
- What is the onset of your pain and its duration
- What is the nature of your chest pain? Is it dull aching, crushing pain, tearing pain or sharp pain?
- Which exact regions of your chest or stomach is aching and is it radiating anywhere?
- What is your pain score (calculated from 1-10, 1 being least pain and 10 being most pain)
Continue reading the article to know more about what causes sharp pains around your stomach or chest?
- Heart issues
It is so vital that heart issues cannot be neglected in chest or stomach pain. You can be having a life threatening condition called a heart attack. However, heart attacks are usually dull aching or crushing pain over the central or left chest radiating to the left arm and jaw. The duration can last for about more than 10 to 20 minutes and not relieve painkillers.
Your doctors will conduct some urgent important investigation in this case such as the ECG and cardiac enzymes. Get immediate medical intervention if you are in the high risk category for heart attack and your chest/stomach pain is associated with other classical symptoms like nausea and profuse sweating.
Other heart related issues are actually more prone to cause sharp chest/stomach pain. Some examples of them are as below;
- Pericarditis – This condition simply means inflammation of the heart covering caused by various etiologies. It is often manifested as chest pain relieved upon sitting up or leaning forward and aggravated upon lying on bed or breathing in deep.
- Dissecting aneurysm – This medical emergency means tearing of the innermost layer of aorta and blood flowing into the middle layer. It is usually reported as severe tearing chest pain radiating to the back.
- Heartburn/ Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD)
This condition happens when your lower esophageal sphincter becomes loose and allows gastric content together with hydrochloric acid to move up to your esophagus causing burning sharp pain around your chest. This is commonly associated with water brash (a bitter taste sensation at the back of the throat).
- Lung problems
Some common lung problems such as chest infection, asthma, pulmonary embolism, pleurisy and collapsed lung can present as pleuritic chest pain. This means that your chest pain is aggravated everytime you are breathing deeply or coughing. It is important to get immediate medical intervention for problems like this as it can be life threatening if left unattended by doctors and medical treatment.
- Bone pain or muscle strain
This is another common condition which can cause chest or stomach pain. Typically during working out or carrying heavy items, your rib bones and muscles in between them can get injured and bruised leaving a sharp pain around your chest and stomach. These damages can be caused by several conditions like costochondritis
(inflammation of rib bones or cartilage), fibromyalgia, broken or bruised ribs.
These conditions are usually treated conservatively by prescribing painkillers to relieve the pain caused. You can also consult doctors virtually via doctoroncall for your problems
- Anxiety and panic attacks
These conditions are often missed while diagnosing chest or stomach pain. You can have anxiety attacks out of nowhere and it can be really intense for a short duration of time reaching the peak. It is often associated with symptoms like nausea, vomiting, sweating and trembling.
