What Causes Painful Contractions In The Chest Area?
Can be duodenal ulcers.
Detailed Answer:
Hi,
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Have gone through your details and i appreciate your concern.
Retrostrenal chest pain involving area below ribs starting at night can be due to two things most likely either Heart or Gastric.
As the pain starts at night when you are in bed ,It can be duodenal ulcer.Chatacterstic feature of duodenal ulcer is that it starts to pain around midnight when the patient is in bed.
I would suggest you to go for a test named Upper gastro intestinal endoscopy.It would rule out the presence of ulcers in your stomach or duodenum.
However as you are in late 50's i would suggest you to go for few baseline tests of cardiology like 2d echo and Stress test because retrostenal chest pain involving thorax(Below rib area) can be angina also.Ruling out the possibility of angina is very important as coronary blockage can cause emergency condition also.
As of now I would suggest you to take a proton pump inhibitor like Rabeprazole or Pantoprazole along with Peptobismol and see if pain responds to it or not.
If it responds to the above mentioned medications then its most likely peptic ulcer or gastritis.However in case it does not respond to medicine then it can be cardiac also.
Hope i answered your query well.
Follow up are welcome.
Regards.