Posted: 10/23/2009 11:54:22 AM EDT
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I'm 25 years old and 6'1" and 315lbs.
2 years ago I went to the ER with chest pain. They checked my heart and took chest xrays and everything looked fine. I was diagnosed with costochondritis and was given Lodine to treat it. ER doc said it was from my posture while sitting at my desk. He knew how I was sitting before I told him. The pain slowly faded and I went a year without any major pain. Maybe a little soreness but that was all. Fast forward a year. I started practicing with my bow and that aggravated it. I went to my family doctor. He did some pushing on my sternum which hurt like hell. He concurred with the ER doc and said it was costochondritis. I was given Lodine again and methylprednisolone. Seemed like it helped but I still had "episodes" of pain. The Lodine does nothing to help with the pain when I have these episodes. Now, come September of this year I started shooting my bow again as I had been pretty much pain free for a while. I thought maybe it was gone. A couple weeks after I started shooting, I played golf one saturday and then worked on my deer stand when I was done. The most strenuous thing I did was climb a 16ft ladder and that wasn't bad. I got home and started watching football and the pain started about 4 pm and got progressively worse til about 10:30 when it started subsiding. By 1am it was all but gone and I could finally go to sleep. I went to my family doc again on the next tuesday. He listened to my heart and lungs again and did some poking and prodding on my chest again. Says it is the same thing. We discussed how the Lodine doesn't really help with the bad pain too much and he gave me that for mild pain and Vicodin for when the pain gets real bad. I have shot my bow literally twice since this appointment and the first time didn't have any problems. The second time was two weeks ago and I have been having these pain episodes since. Now in this time, I got constipated from the Vicodin I guess and I think straining trying to fire off a grocery missile aggravated it also. Ended up taking a laxative. About 3 days is the most I have gone without a pain episode in these last two weeks. This one I am going through now was real bad about an hour and a half ago. It started about 4 hours ago and two Vicodin later the pain has dulled some. Vicodin doesn't seem to help as much as I hoped. My buddy gave me a Lortab one night when I had one of the episodes and couldn't go to sleep. I went to sleep pretty quickly where I haven't been able to do that with Vicodin. I haven't taken one when I wasn't trying to go to sleep so I can't really say how well they work all I know is I can go to sleep after taking one. My question is what is the next step to getting rid of this? I'm going to my doc again next week. Anything I should ask him? Are there any specialist for this kind of thing? I know losing weight will help and I am GOING to have a lifestyle change when I get this pain somewhat controlled. |
| Bump so some doctors can help you. Like you have already said you need to lose about 80 pounds, that extra weight is putting a lot of strain on your heart. If you have a diet heavy in saturated fat your arteries might be narrower as well. I would treat this as a wake up call to dramatically change your lifestyle, I hope the best for you. |