Could this pain be heart related?

Is my pain heart related?

• 30 year old male 5'9 190 pounds athletic build. My blood pressure is generally 110/68 resting heart rate of 73. For the last six months i have had chest pain, anxiety, CONSTANT belching and gas. I had a endoscopy done and revealed a hiatal hernia, gastritis, and duodenitis. I have had 3 EKG's, one stress test, enzyme test, and echo cardiogram, and i paid out of pocket for a 64 slice CT heart scan. All of those tests came back perfectly normal. I had blood work done and my cholesterol was a little high but not major...i contribute that to only eating minimal food for the month prior due to freaking out about my chest pain and only eating fast food when i did eat. I may have been eating one meal every three days at that point. I dropped down in weight from 210 to 183 in two months. I was taking ativan for 3 months and have since tappered myself off of it due to not really being anxious anymore from my chest pain. I am taking protonix, usually two a day as prescribed and it does not help at all. I still belch and have regurgitated food come back up. Generally, every time i feel a pain in my chest, stand up, sit down, or eat I belch very loudly three or four times in a row and it goes away for a few minutes. I can run, play paintball, play in the yard with the kids and have no pain so with that and all the tests i have had my mind really wants to rule out any heart related problems. Does anyone else have these problems?? If so what did you do to correct the problem. I am tired of living in pain all the time lol. Also, tired of paying hospital co pays!! Even with all the tests I have had I have a hard time not believing its heart related. I have also noticed that when i have to use the restroom (a bm) my chest starts to hurt a little and after i go and relieve the pressure all is well for a few. Even as I sit here and type I am burping constantly and have pain and all I did was eat a fiber bar and drink a quarter of a cup of water. Anybody out there that can relate??? Thanks for your time in advance!!

• Answer:

  We sound like we have similar symptoms. My chest pain is severe, the burning in my stomach is severe, I've been to the ER well more than you for the same reasons and I still worry whether there is some heart issues anyway. Unlike you, my blood pressure has been too high and I have been having racing pulses ever since this ordeal began so the doubt keeps cropping up. Nevertheless, please, I beg of you, get tested for H Pylori bacterial infection and for parasites. While you can get blood tested and urea breath tested for H Pylori, I encourage you to get stool antigen tested. My breath test one year ago showed a false negative likely due to the use of PPI-proton pump inhibitors (Nexium, Zegerid, Prilosec, Protonix, etc.). I was told that it didn't matter that I was taking PPIs when I got the several hundred dollar (no insurance), false negative breath test. Obviously wrong because I suffered for 10 more months with worsening symptoms. Just like you, a BM is preceded by scary symptoms: mine are severe burning, palpitations, worsening nausea (I'm nauseous all the time), and more. I found a functional medicine practitioner online and got the stool test (@$300). If you have a good doctor and insurance, s/he can order the test for you, too, if s/he believes your symptoms more than their pre-conceived notions or the results of an erroneous test. Just make sure (if you do the stool antigen test) that it is a 4-day ova/parasite and H Pylori test which includes an occult (blood in stool smear) not just some quick office blood in stool smear. The stool antigen test has multiple vials with some type of re-agent in each of them that have to be filled with daily stool samples. For me, I had to be off PPIs (despite what the doctor said) in order to test positive for H Pylori - negative on parasites. Once you get that, you may have a viable place to start. Hopefully, you don't have any of those things but, if you do, knowing this information may get you on the right track faster than me. Also, I have learned during the past year that I am quite gluten and wheat intolerant so I had to get off sugar, gluten, (it took me months of doing that and not doing much better to realize I had to go wheat free too), no carbonated beverages, no dairy, only bananas for fruit, etc. I've also learned the hard way that fiber is terrible for anyone who has damaged intestines (e.g. leaky gut). No matter what the experts say, the food pyramid/plate, if you have damaged insides, fiber, wheat, whole grain, etc. are horrible irritants. I've been to the GI doctor multiple times, family doctors, ER doctors. None of them got me to these realizations just a lot of documenting of my daily symptoms, everything I ate, and scouring the Internet for now one year and a half. For your edification, you could start researching terms like "leaky gut", "H Pylori", "intestinal parasite" to get an idea what symptoms people have had, etc. Also, there are companies such as: Metametrix, BioLab (I think), Enterolab (there are others) that can give you an idea of stool test offerings. I am not giving sources because this is my singular experience of similar symptoms as yours and I don't want to shortchange your decision-making process with what I have chosen to take into account versus what you would find important. I am sorry to overwhelm you with so much information. I just saw my experience in yours and know what it is like to be told everything from "I have no idea what is wrong with you" to "it's all in your head" and have no one I know personally have the first clue what I am going through with severe chest pain, extreme nausea and stomach burning, heavy gas and bloating, burping, etc. Other people recounting their experiences online through forums, Q & As like this, helped me so much, I hope this helps others, too. Best wishes Dustin....