Two weeks ago, I started to have burning twinges in my chest, only lasting less than a second but still worrying. Last Sunday, it started to get worse. Every time I started to doze off to sleep, I would be awoken suddenly by a pain that could occur anywhere between my shoulders and nipple line, and I would wake up with my left side throbbing fast in time with my heartbeat. I went to my gp, she took my blood pressure – normal – and listened to my heart on the stethoscope and said my symptoms were nothing more than a virus that would clear in ten days.

I had two nights of reasonable sleep with Nurofen painkillers, but this Saturday night I had NO sleep at all as this happened constantly every time I tried to go to sleep. On one occasion, the pain seemed to roll from my breastbone to my left shoulder, other times it was under my left arm or at the bottom of my ribcage.
I’ve constantly been feeling tightness around my breastbone during this, and moderate shortness of breath but during the day, pain is manageable and I get on with my day. It is at night when this takes over.

This Sunday I went to hospital emergency, as I was really afraid I was about to have a heart attack. I had two further ECGs, also blood pressure, pulse and temperature. ALL of these tests were normal results. The doctor said he thought the problem was in my chest wall, not my heart, maybe ‘muscular skeletal’ but couldn’t diagnose me, as Emergency doctors are only there to prevent any immediate threat. He advised me to go back to my GP. I have a new appointment this week, but last night I could not sleep again. It feels like extreme indigestion in my upper chest, also pain under my left armpit, and waking up with my upper body throbbing.

Any ideas what this might be? Repeat ALL ECGs and blood pressure are normal, the ER Dr thinks it isn’t the heart, I don’t smoke, occasionally drink and do have a fatty diet but am starting to cut back on both. And a CT scan in spring 2008 showed nothing wrong. So it could be Tietze’s syndrome?