Chest pain - dilated left atrium, young adult male, any ideas ?

Where do i start..

I've been experiencing chest pain since January of this year. In December
of last year my cousin murdered his gf and then hung himself. You might
remember at the time i was running the weight loss competition then
disappeared - mainly because i lost interest in everything because of the
trauma i've been through and to some extent am still going through.

The first time i experienced the chest pain it was a cru****ng feeling all
over the chest and after visiting the E.R they felt it was due to stress
and that it was a panic attack. At the time i thought i was having a heart
attack. They gave me some valium after an ECG and X-RAY came back fine.
Things went back to normal for about a month.

I then started to get more chest pain and went back to the E.R. After
another ECG that came back fine they suggested i see my G.P to go about
getting a stress test done. I was given more valium.

At this point the chest pain i was experiencing was more of a brief
stabbing pain then the first time i had experienced it and would often
make me lurch forward. I had a stress test that came back great and showed
everything was working fine. I had a METS of 16 after running about 15mins
on the treadmill and no problems with my ST segments.

I then had an echocardiogram and inbetween having that done and awaiting
the results i have been to the hospital a further 4 times with the pain
and had ECG's that always come back fine. I've been having the pain every
few days but did not always visit the hospital as it was getting to the
point where they were panning me off saying i had anxiety after so many
visits.

I got my echocardiogram results back today and it shows i have a mildly
dilated left atrium. My G.P said any serious issue with that chamber is
accompanied by backflow into the left ventricle but my LV is working as
normal(or right, forget which he said). The valves are working as normal
so blood isnt going backwards nor would there appear to be faulty valves.

I have normal flow patterns, no significant valvular abnormality and my
rhythm is sinus. Normal left ventricular size and systolic function.

I have never used drugs such as cocaine (smoked pot twice) and i am a non
smoker. I admit i have been binge drinking too much the past 5 months over
what happened with my cousin but that was something that occured once a
fortnight and i do not have a problem with alcohol. I've stopped drinking
alcohol as of 3 weeks ago when i started anti-depressant treatment.

My eating habits the past 5 months have not been great and i have been
eating alot of chocolate. I cut out caffiene at the onset of the chest
pains but after a month it did not seem to have any good or bad effect. I
am not a heavy coffee drinker. I've gained about 10-15 kgs in weight due
to lack of motivation and lost alot of the fitness i once had but even
after that my stress test and fitness test came back great.

I've never experienced the pain DURING exercise but i have experienced it
twice briefly after on 2 occasions. Yesterday after boxing it came on
about 15mins after i finished and lasted for 1-2 hours and about a month
ago after having *** with my girlfriend i experienced one brief stabbing
pain shortly after orgasm. The other 50 or so times i've experienced it is
when i've done no cardio and pretty much laying around.

I've spoken to my brother who does medicine at uni and he feels even
though i have a slightly dilated left atrium it could be for a few of the
following reasons. A) Up until about a year ago i was jogging everyday
from 1-2 hours. My heart simply grew to accomodate this extra pressure B)
It's always been like that C) Because my blood pressure is slightly up it
will dilate to pump harder but should return to normal when my blood
pressure returns to normal.

Not sure what else i can add. I see the cardiologist end of the month so
inbetween now and then i'm trying to do as much research as i can but
everything i've found in google so far seems to show that people with a
dilated left atrium have problems with the left ventricle or valves but
that isn't an issue for me.

I've had it all this evening for about 3 hours, very brief stabbing pain
in the same spot. It's been like that for a month now where as previously
it could be anywhere in the chest region. It isn't heart burn as i've
tried antacids to no avail.


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