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Dr. Andrew Rynne
MD
Dr. Andrew Rynne

Family Physician

Exp 50 years

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What Causes Severe Chest Pain?

yesterday I woke up to unbearable pain in my chest, took ranitidine it went away mostly after 2 hours but pain remained in my breast bone and shoulder all day, again last night it got so bad I could not lie down. now it seems better although still have shoulder pain.
Mon, 28 Apr 2014
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General & Family Physician 's  Response
Any unbearable chest pain should not be taken lightly. First thing you have to do is to rule out heart attack. Heart attack if diagnosed within 6 hours of the attack, can be effectively treated otherwise it can produce significant mortality. Hence you must take an ECG. In 90% of cases it can rule out heart attack. If it is not heart attack the chest pain may be due to bony pain as occurs in costo chondritis or due to acidity; they don't pose threat to life. However many times it happens that people are often mistaking heart attack as acidity, etc and taking ranitidine and they don't see the doctor immediately; this results in loss of thousands of lives. Hence i strongly suggests that you meet a doctor immediately whenever you develop pain in the chest.
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What Causes Severe Chest Pain?

Any unbearable chest pain should not be taken lightly. First thing you have to do is to rule out heart attack. Heart attack if diagnosed within 6 hours of the attack, can be effectively treated otherwise it can produce significant mortality. Hence you must take an ECG. In 90% of cases it can rule out heart attack. If it is not heart attack the chest pain may be due to bony pain as occurs in costo chondritis or due to acidity; they don t pose threat to life. However many times it happens that people are often mistaking heart attack as acidity, etc and taking ranitidine and they don t see the doctor immediately; this results in loss of thousands of lives. Hence i strongly suggests that you meet a doctor immediately whenever you develop pain in the chest.