[TopHand]

Another thought along those lines, is that men tend to try and ignore discomfort. If a man gets a pain in his chest, he is likely to think to himself, "I'll wait and see if it gets worse!" If the same man is living with someone, he might say to them, "I have a slight pain right here!" pointing to his chest. Then that person would begin to pressure him to have it checked.

[cableshaft]

It's even worse when you get chest pain periodically but it's not a heart attack, and gone to the emergency room and paid the money for it multiple times, and they just tell you that you didn't have a heart attack, it's probably something musculoskeletal or heart burn, tell you to go home and take some Prilosec.

I went to the ER three times last year because of these pains (and one time several years before that). The last three or four times it happened since then I just stayed at home and tried to relax. But it scares the hell out of me that one of these times it could be more than that, and I'll choose not to go to the ER and that'll be the one that kills me.

It wasn't always just chest pain either, I had other symptoms, like a weak left arm, lightheaded, short of breath, pain in other areas of my body as well, heart beating really fast, etc. Common heart attack symptoms, and now I don't know if I should go or not when it happens again. Even my girlfriend is skeptical when I tell her I'm feeling this way now.

[mikekchar]

I can relate. I had a couple of bouts of chest pain/could be panic attacks/could be anything in the last couple of years. I think it might be connected with my blood pressure medicine, but again the real problem is that it could be anything. Not having had a heart attack before, one doesn't know what it feels like, so you're left wondering, "It that what it feels like?" I've been very healthy all my life and so when something suddenly isn't right, it's so surprising. All the time I'm thinking, "Well, why all of a sudden now?"

The one thing I can say is that the worry itself seems to make things about a million times worse. I've made a big effort to remove stress from my life and it seems to have helped. With my medicine, I had to explain to my doctor that "10% chance of side effect X" doesn't mean that it's very unlikely that the side effect I'm having is from the medicine -- rather that he should expect that 10% of his patients taking the medicine will get that side effect from it. Amazing, but he'd never realised that before. Now he's a lot more cooperative about choosing medicine that doesn't cause serious problems :-).

I think a big part, though, is that having a belief that you are healthy makes a big difference in how you interpret problems with your body. For me, once I got things checked out I reasoned that the chance that they've made a mistake is quite small. So while I may have a symptom it does not necessarily follow that I have a serious problem. Getting it checked out is important, but once you have, then worrying is only likely to make you ill. So far that's worked well for me. YMMV.

(But as you say -- still scary as hell if you think about it too much...)

[cableshaft]

And then you have celebrities like Kevin Smith that tell their having a heart attack story and say 'it just felt like I was a little out of breath, but they said my Widowmaker artery was 80% blocked and if they didn't operate right away I would die.', and I'm like 'I have asthma. I often feel like I'm "a little short of breath". If that's the only symptom I get, I'm screwed!'

I am not eating healthy enough or exercising anywhere near enough still to feel confident enough that I'm healthy. I need to course correct for that. Work really hasn't helped lately. A lot of late nights and stress, and my willpower goes to shit when I'm stressed.

[GavinMcG]

Have you talked to a cardiologist? If not, you should. You might end up doing a stress test or an echocardiogram, and ruling out or confirming various possibilities. You might end up getting prescriptions for medications that you can use when you're feeling that sort of pain.

Also, while I hesitate to recommend calling EMS out unnecessarily, you may refuse transport to the hospital even if you've called 911 for a possible emergency, in the U.S. Paramedics can do an EKG, and while hospitals can additionally use bloodwork to rule out tissue death, you could make the choice to refuse further medical treatment once the paramedics have seen no signs of a heart attack.

[cableshaft]

I do have a stress test I got my Primary Care doctor to write up that I need to schedule sometime soon.

I went to a cardiologist a few years ago, but basically he had me do a stress test and an EKG, said 'you're fine', told me to exercise 7 days a week!? for a year (like no day off, no guidance on how intense it should be, just that comment), and wanted me to see him again a year later. It didn't leave a good taste in my mouth and I didn't go back.

They did a bunch of EKGs during my episodes at the ER and they all came back normal, so I think I just need to do the stress test, for now. I had an echocardiogram done when I first went to the hospital for this a few years ago, and that was normal also.

[barberousse]

I actually paid $100 for a trip to the emergency room with this strange pain under my left pectoral and got told they couldn't a damn thing, probably just muscle pain. I think its related to how much I'm seated throughout the day.

[ben_jones]

Wait what? I would expect an emergency room trip in the US to be $1,000 - $10,000 particularly somewhere like S.F., especially since most emergency room visits are to the nearest hospital which could be out-of-network.

[cableshaft]

It varies by hospital and insurance. One of my visits to ER was $1300. Once I moved to the next town over a couple months later, the other two ER visits to a different hospital were $650 each.

BUT, that $1300 really caught me by surprise because about five years ago I had gone to the same hospital, for the same thing, and let myself be admitted to stay overnight for more tests, and that only cost me $450 ($150 copay and $300 for a doctor that visited during that).

And yeah, that's one reason why I hesitate to go to ER now. Having to pay about $4000 for a few ER visits and a few extra tests afterwards that all came back negative was not my idea of a fun way to spend money that summer (fun fact, I also had to pay $4000 in car repairs that same summer. It was a fun summer).

[Joakal]

It's not just pressure but peer support. If you're alone and you got chest pain. You might have anxiety that doctor will say nothing is wrong and that's embarrassing for some.

[ianai]

That’s not a male exclusive trait or even generalizable rule. Headache sufferers (often or mostly? women) tend to “wait and see” with their pain, for instance. It’s a character trait and also knowledge based. For headache sufferers, it, for me, is just giving in to the inevitable-it’s fast to exhaust the pain management options. A nurse is in a position to know more about the difference between aches and pains and true emergencies. But even that’s not a rule. My medical family definitely ignored a lot of my health issues growing up because of their backgrounds. My dad heated a scalpel over a flame and dig into my thumb for a splinter when I was 5. (He let it cool, but still.)