severe chest pain...muscle strain or PE?

[peachy123]

I was laying in a kind of awkward position with my elbows leaned back for a few hours this afternoon and when I sat up, I immediately got severe cramping chest pain spreading to both sides of the front of my ribcage, like 8/10 pain.

It lasted maybe 3 minutes and got worse when I moved/stretched, also when I breathed in I think. I panicked but I breathed through it and it went away. If it had lasted longer, I probably would have called an ambulance since it really hurt. But it completely went away within a few mins.

I currently don't have any chest pain but this episode scared me and I keep thinking maybe a clot broke off and went to my lungs.

The thing is, I don't have the chest pain now, I don't have a swollen leg, no shortness of breath, my pulse is normal, I even jogged on the spot for a while to see if I was short of breath on exertion (because I've read many PE stories and many people said when they exercised they felt really short of breath), and I didn't notice any really. The thing is...if it were muscle strain, why would it go away so quickly? Like I'm stretching now to see if I can induce it, but nothing...it's weird. I've never really had cramps in my chest before either.

Normally I'd probably go up to a&e but I was just there yesterday for central chest pain!!! They did EKG bloods etc and everything came back fine yesterday and said it was maybe heartburn.

I'm really hoping this was just a muscle strain or cramp due to my awkward position? I mean, it's pretty coincidental that it hurt as soon as I sat up, right?

But the pain was really bad for those 3 minutes, even though it's totally gone now. If I go back to a&e they might think I'm mad when I was only there last night. I'm trying to think logically, and connect my sudden position change to the sudden pain, but i'm just so nervous and on edge :weep:

[Darksky]

There are a lot of string muscles in that area. I would say it was cramp. Cramp is extremely painful. Think when you get cramp in your calf...it's agony. Three minutes later and it's gone.
You haven't pulled a muscle because, as you said, it wouldn't go so quick. It's cramp.

[ankietyjoe]

You're adding 2 and 2 and getting a parrot.

You laid funny, you moved and felt pain, then it went away.

That's it, end of story. Nothing else to see. No further questions your honour. No buts, no surely's.

[peachy123]

There are a lot of string muscles in that area. I would say it was cramp. Cramp is extremely painful. Think when you get cramp in your calf...it's agony. Three minutes later and it's gone.
You haven't pulled a muscle because, as you said, it wouldn't go so quick. It's cramp.

That's true. I would definitely describe this pain as a bad cramp, it's just that I've never had cramps besides leg and foot cramp. If I stretch my leg weirdly I can produce a cramp. So I guess it could be possible to stretch weirdly and produce cramp in other areas too...

---------- Post added at 21:55 ---------- Previous post was at 21:50 ----------


You're adding 2 and 2 and getting a parrot.

You laid funny, you moved and felt pain, then it went away.

That's it, end of story. Nothing else to see. No further questions your honour. No buts, no surely's.

LOL. Well, the fact it went away quickly is definitely good. It was really bad for those few minutes though and I felt it over my entire chest to my shoulders. There's so much frenzy connected to chest pain, so my anxiety jumps to the worst case scenario. I'm just hoping it's cramp.