What's up with my heart?

[Slimebeast]

Chrizum said:

Slimebeast said:

Chrizum said:

Slimebeast said:
It's nothing (like a slightly arrogant doctor would say). It's definitely not the heart and nothing you need to check up unless it occurs frequently again or unless the symptoms significantly change.

It's obvious you have no knowledge about the human body whatsoever because the symptons he described are 100% certainly related to the heart.

No I can assure you they aren't. I am a doctor and I meet patients with breast aches several times a week. Andrespetmonkey does not have a problem with his heart.

First of all heart related pain is never sharp or only a second long. Heart pain is diffuse and widespread rather than localised (and often of relatively mild intensity. But it can be very intense too) and it's prolonged (at least we are talking minutes of duration).

The numbness in his arm could have been an alarming symtom and heart related if the rest of the symptoms made sense, but numbness in an arm is also very commonly a benign symptom.

Although I know quite a few things about medicine, I'm not a doctor, so if you're certain of yourself chances are you're right and I'm wrong. However, I find it tricky to say for certain it's not related to his heart via an online forum. He describes it as a sharp pain in his heart but descriptions can be wrong, it may just have been a prominent pain on left side of his chest, which would fit with cardiovascular problems.

I just hope you are right but if I was the topic starter, I'd prefer to be safe than sorry with these kind of things and just get a check-up.

I hear what you are saying. It's a very sensitive thing to try to evaluate symtoms through text in a simple internet forum. I agree. And in general I try to avoid it completely.

Also, you have a very good point in how people describe their symptoms "wrong" and subjectively. That is very common and it takes experience and wisdom to evaluate it correctly for a proper analysis and proper advice. I agree with better safe than sorry and I agree that the general stance a layman forum poster should take is to strongly recommend the person in question, like in this case the OP, to seek out a professional IRL.

But, and this is just an interesting side note. Often a nurse's job is to do exactly this (to give advice based on scant information) . The nurse is often called by a patient over the phone and the nurse has to decide weather the symtoms are serious or not, or if they can be ignored completely and decide how urgent the situation is. And nurses do these decisions with much less knowledge of the human body than doctor's possess but they're trained to do it using their own tricks and methods, which I highly respect because they're very good at it.