What Causes Headache And Pain In Left Shoulder Radiating To Arm When Under Stress?

Posted on Thu, 12 May 2016

Question: Hello I have been having some chest pains for about a month now I've been under a lot of stress emotional stress as well as others stress but recently over the past two weeks more emotional stress and the pain is radiating into my left shoulder blade and my arm a little bit and I'm having headaches so obviously I'm concerned about a heart attack I have a doctor appointment on Tuesday and I'm trying to fight the urge to go to the ER but my husband reminded me about this website. I was thinking about taking a skelaxin a doctor gave me for stress related issues but I'm a little concerned like what if I have a heart attack in the middle of the night but I'm so knocked out from the skelaxin
Sorry the word was endovan that is what I'm taking for the endometriosis also I meant to say I've been experiencing pain from the endometriosis for the past few days
Sorry I forgot to mention my rapid heart rate I mean I don't have I can't really type it I'm not good at that but it definitely is 8 pounds fast and hard rather when I can't get my mind off the emotional stress and I do feel like I have a bit of not exactly shortness of breath but I just have to really consciously take a deep breath that makes sense. When I'm distracted the chest pain does seem to diminish some other than the shoulder blade is still a bit irritated but maybe that's going to calm down also. There are moments in my day long moments in fact probably when I'm not thinking about these issues when I'm not actually aware of any real chest pain or shoulder pain so I'm hoping it's not a heart attack but somehow otherwise stress related

Answered by Dr. Anantharamakrishnan (53 minutes later)

Brief Answer:
Get examined...

Detailed Answer:
Hi friend
Welcome to Health Care Magic

     The picture s highly suggestive of Anxiety… / all the features are likely related to the stress… / Prognosis is generally excellent in such situations / But, at age 50, anxiety should rather be an exclusion diagnosis…
     We need to exclude chest infection in view of the ‘chest cough’ and antibiotic need
     We also need to exclude the heart… even though your symptoms do not suggest Coronary Artery Disease (CAD)… In suspected heart attack, TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE – if detected early, an attack may even be aborted / the amount of damage and complications can be reduced remarkably.

     Appropriate treatment demands accurate diagnosis / Diagnosis demands examination; probably investigation too. Therefore in the current context, I would prefer that you GET EXAMINED

Go to ER / An ECG, blood tests , X-ray chest – can be done in a matter of minutes / and the diagnosis arrived at.

Good luck
God bless you

Note: For further queries related to coronary artery disease and prevention, click here.

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Prasad