# what is this?



## jane54 (Jul 13, 2004)

Just a quick background: I am a 57 year old female, don't smoke or drink, excerise every day(walk 2-3 miles) and have good blood pressure(113/64) and good cholesteral. No history of any heart disease or lung problems. With that out of the way, I have developed a strange problem. For about six weeks, I have been getting a pulling sensation on the right side of my chest. It feels like someone is standing there twisting those muscles. Sometimes it takes my breath away. It comes and goes and doesn't seem to correlate with anything in particular. Now in the last couple of weeks, I have been getting a burning sensation at the bottom of my sternum and sometimes a choking feeling traveling up my throat. Sometimes it feels like my heart pounds very hard for a couple of beats and then everything is fine. Zantac doesn't seem to help, but Tums relieves the burning for awhile. I have never had acid reflux that I know about but this is driving me crazy. not to mention it hurts(the burning not the pulling sensation). I have been diagnosed with IBS and had a colonoscopy, upper GI and a abdominal CT within the last year or so. Nothing was ever found but this is a new problem. I guess I'm concerned that this could be a heart problem and not a digestive one. Anything like this happen to anyone else? Thanks for making it through this long story!


----------

