I was overworked and caught what I thought was a flu or just a very bad cold. I suddenly got periodic attacks of terrible chest pains and upper gastric symptons of burning heat, like a lit torch burning up my insides. My blood pressure suddenly spiked to 250. I live by myself and rushed to an emergency station in the neighborhood. (A former hospital). They gave me clonidine - slowly my bp returned to almost normal.I got prescriptions for anti-biotic and cough medicine. a week later these attacks of horrible burning and feeling very ill returned repeatedly, followed by b.p. spikes. But in between I returned to feeling normal. But my physical condition deteriated - I lost 10 lbs. in about 10 days. My son came (he lives about 200 miles from me) and took me to the hospital. They took many tests, blood, scan (I told them the emergency had already done that) EKG s, and loaded me up with amlodopine, chlorthalidone, lisinopril clonodine and famotidine. I pleaded with them to get a gastro-enterologist (recomm. by a RN) and do a gastroscopy. They refused because of my age they told me.