Recently, i've had episodes of tightening in my chest. i've also got a dull pain between my shoulder-blades. i've also had a bit of pain down one arm.
Then i realized that i've got GRD, which can make my esophagus constrict rather tightly and unpredictably, my backpack weights about 12 lbs (5k) due to most of the crap i carry in it, and one of the handles on it sits right square to where i've been having that pain.
You know, if i wanted to fool myself into thinking i was having a heart attack, i seriously couldn't do a better job sometimes.
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I once went to the emergency room, and just by doing the diagnostic testing that's normal for a male my age complaining of chest paint (right below the ribs) they pretty much convinced me that if I wasn't having a heart attack, I was certainly expected to.
I'm not sure what was worse - them deciding it was time to hook me up to the 12 channel, high-speed chart recorder (what, the regular unit wasn't sufficient for this kind of horrible ailment?), or that the respiration instrumentation set off a "patient-failure" alarm for low airflow every time I relaxed.
Or maybe it was the two young, female EMTs practicing injections by application of (ineffective) painkillers into my butt-cheek. Who knew that doing mind-altering needle drugs, pantsless, with a pair of smiling, eager young ladies could be a bad thing?