My Chest Pain Scare and Mystery
On January 27th, 2007 I did a 14-mile
run – my longest in about 20 years. I
was two months into my training for the L.A. Marathon and was gradually
building up the length of my weekly long run.
It was a drizzly day but the run went okay. Then about 20 minutes after I finished my
chest started to feel really strange and the sensation started radiating into
my left arm. It wasn’t as much a pain or
a squeeze as a heebie jeebies feeling. I
was talking to my girlfriend on the phone at the time and we both thought it
just might be a heart attack. So I
called 911 and the paramedics came quickly.
They gave me oxygen, nitroglycerin and two baby
aspirin and did an EKG. They said the
EKG was a little off so they took me to
When I got home I immediately went for a 5-mile run
and it happened again about 20
minutes after I finished. I was tempted
to call 911 again but I knew the sensation would go away in about 20 minutes,
which it did. I ran 11 miles the next
day and it happened yet again and again it disappeared in about 20 minutes.
It didn’t happen again for the next three weeks or
so but during the marathon it started coming on during a short stretch when I
decided to walk. It went away when I
started back up running but returned after I finished the race. It wasn’t quite as bad this time - or maybe I
just felt crappy enough otherwise that I just didn’t notice!
It happened one more time 5 days after the marathon
(and worse than ever) but it hasn’t happened since. I saw my doctor a few days after that and he
didn’t think it was related to my heart.
He thought it might be some kind of muscle spasm.
I think it might be related to my M.S. or my
medication. It also seems to happen if I
get a little chilled although a couple of those times I wasn’t chilled.
So I don’t know.
A mystery.