Heart pain on inhalation

Heart pain when inhaling can occur completely unexpectedly and completely throw a person off track. Such pain can intensify when changing body position, when exhaling. It is often accompanied by quite noticeable fear or panic. This is due to the fact that such painful sensations in the heart area during inhalation cause sensations as if something inside the chest can burst or rupture.

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Diseases that cause pain in the heart during inhalation

There are several reasons for the occurrence of pain in the heart when inhaling. Among them are precordial syndrome and thoracoalgia (there are about twenty types of this disease). In addition, intercostal and herpetic neuralgia are also provocateurs of severe pain in the heart area when inhaling. Herpetic neuralgia is a common occurrence among people with reduced immunity.

The most common causes of heart pain when inhaling are:

• Precordial syndrome. This diagnosis manifests itself with acute pain in the chest area. It occurs completely suddenly. The pain can significantly increase during deep breathing. Basically, pain in the heart when inhaling due to precordial syndrome occurs when a person is at rest. The duration of pain can be from 30 seconds to 3 minutes. They disappear as suddenly as they appear.

After the acute pain has ceased, some residual effects of a duller nature may remain. In fact, today precordial syndrome poses more questions to doctors than it answers. It is known for sure that this syndrome has nothing in common with the heart.

Most doctors believe that such pain occurs as a result of a pinched nerve. Raising the alarm about pain caused by precordial syndrome is inappropriate. The peculiarity of this syndrome is that it mainly affects children and adolescents.

• Intercostal neuralgia is much more common in women, although it is also diagnosed in men. Pain with intercostal neuralgia occurs more in the left part of the chest. What is neuralgia? This is the name given to pain in the nervous tissue that is not subject to any structural changes. Sometimes intercostal neuralgia is confused with pleurisy and other inflammatory diseases of the lungs. When coughing and breathing deeply, the pain in the chest intensifies and is similar to sharp stabbing in the heart.

This diagnosis is quite common in women who are subject to stress and depression. Unlike precordial syndrome, intercostal neuralgia can lead to quite unpleasant consequences, such as loss of appetite, muscle atrophy and even paralysis. Accordingly, it is very important to make a correct and timely diagnosis if pain in the heart appears when inhaling.

• Pneumothorax is the term used to describe the formation of an air cushion in close proximity to the lung (a layer of air between the lung and the chest wall). Sometimes pneumothorax is a complication of certain lung diseases, but in most cases, healthy people suffer from it. Holding your breath can help alleviate the condition. However, if holding your breath makes breathing difficult, the pneumothorax must be removed immediately, possibly even by surgery.

There are different types of pneumothorax: the primary type develops in a healthy person without any apparent reason. It is caused by a tiny tear in the lung, namely in its upper part. Statistics show that for unknown reasons, tall and thin people suffer from this type of pneumothorax in most cases.

• Secondary spontaneous pneumothorax is a complication of an existing lung disease. These include tuberculosis, pneumonia, cystic fibrosis, lung cancer, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and others that can make the edges of the lungs prone to rupture.
• Valvular pneumothorax is a relatively rare complication and requires emergency care.

In addition to the above-mentioned diseases that provoke the occurrence of pneumothorax, injuries, car accidents, stab wounds and surgical operations can also provoke it.

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What to do if your heart hurts when you inhale?

It is quite difficult to remain calm when you feel pain in your heart when you inhale or exhale. But, it is worth remembering that in fact, such pain does not originate in the heart muscle itself. Try to take a deep breath or change your body position abruptly.

If such painful manifestations appear frequently and make you suspect that you have a serious illness, then it makes sense to consult a family doctor, therapist, or, if necessary, a pulmonologist or cardiologist. Do not forget that quitting smoking and a stable psychoneurological condition reduce the likelihood of such painful manifestations many times over.