Stabbing chest pain after max sprint effort, should I see another doctor?

A handful of times I’ve experienced a mild stabbing chest pain lasting a few seconds after doing max sprint efforts (>1000W for around 30 seconds), it feels as if the heart simply does not get enough oxygen and could be a form of stable angina (I’m 37).

I saw my GP about it and he didn’t think anything of it beyond advising to take it more easy as I’m old now :p

Any point in getting a second opinion about this and perhaps get a cMRI? X-rays taken for other reasons didn’t show any obvious issues.

Yes.

Definitely

It would be prudent.
Possibly nothing, but only one way to know for sure and if it proves to be something sinister, it is always, always best to find these things out early

Yes! Stop doing the max sprint efforts until you’ve checked yourself out

Very much this ^^

A friend of a friend was a keen runner, had a bit of “stabbing pain” whilst running, it occurred a few times and he ignored it. It’s now too late for a doctor 😞.

Your pain is probably something innocuous but it’s certainly not worth the risk of ignoring it, surely?

IANAD

BIWBODH (but i will be one day hopefully)

Yes. Definitely.

>1000W for around 30 seconds

That is seriously impressive!

Yes I’m thinking I should get it checked, as for the individual more testing is generally better, but many public? doctors tend to think socio-economics first and that such testing of otherwise healthy, relatively young individuals doesn’t “pay off” esp if having to double check results if positive to avoid false positives.

Thx eskay! Max is 1101w ;p

Yes ask another doctor. Post covid I had one tell me to eat more greens and only take gentle exercise and the other said go straight to A&E.
Fortunately wasn’t immediately life threatening but A&E kept me there for several hours doing tests and repeat visits to establish it was only what is now seen as post covid issues not a heart problem or a blood clot in my lung.
The only way to check was for doctors with ECGs and other kit to prod and test me.
Since had another ECG done at the GP. Took 10 minutes for the nurse to do and doctor looked it over and rang the next day saying all good.
Hopefully this is the kind of thing the GP will do for you too.
PS you’ve made me remember why I hated fartlek and interval training.

Absolutely you should and hopefully you get a GP who takes it more seriously.

I had left chest Discomfort one Day, saw gp later that day then they insisted I go to a&e as a precaution. Initial fast track to have chest electric tythyms checked and a blood test to check for any possible indicators. Thankfully nothing but as Others say get it seen to asap.

PreCovid I went to the doctor to discuss occasional chest pains and I was wired up to an ECG within 30 minutes.

Definitely get it checked

A friend of a friend was a keen runner, had a bit of “stabbing pain” whilst running, it occurred a few times and he ignored it. It’s now too late for a doctor 😞.

Jeez, that’s rough. Sorry to hear.

Yep, second opinion is very much called for here

yes, but try to get a doctor that specialises in sports folks.  When I got my heart checked out they would let me go anywhere near the sorts of heart rates I normally run at going up hills and probably no-where near where you were

Go to A&E with chest pain… have you on an ECG and blood tests in minutes.

Took me a year to convince my GP i had a heart problem… took a consultant and an Angiogram about 30 mins.

I asked my wife who is GP. She said if you presented with that she would get you back in for ECG and bloods. Would be checking for anemia, thyroid, diabetes and other stuff that may be simpler than dodgy ticker. If nothing found and issue still happening she’d refer you to cardio.

yes, but try to get a doctor that specialises in sports folks. When I got my heart checked out they would let me go anywhere near the sorts of heart rates I normally run at going up hills and probably no-where near where you were

Sound advice, haven’t done an ECG under max exertion (ECGs at rest are normal) and It would be nice to get my coronary arteries checked for (degree of – we all have some don’t we) atherosclerosis with either ultrasound or cMRI – if some are narrowing a lot might be worth monitoring and then it may be a bad idea to keep doing maximal efforts (not going to until I get it checked out).

Also possible that this kind of pain is harmless for what I know, but not going to assume that

I asked my wife who is GP. She said if you presented with that she would get you back in for ECG and bloods. Would be checking for anemia, thyroid, diabetes and other stuff that may be simpler than dodgy ticker. If nothing found and issue still happening she’d refer you to cardio.

Have done, everything is normal, otherwise healthy.

I had similar a couple of years back cross racing – most stressful thing about it was that it was localised left central, ie precisely where you ‘feel’ your heart to be. Ended up having an exercise echocardiogram, imaging the heart whilst riding a stationary bike (unfortunately no power meter, so couldn’t set the KOM), and all was clear. Takes some weight off the mind so hopefully you get a similar result – mine was / is always dull pain though, never a stabbing pain.

I still get it from time to time but it was just written off as some musculo-skeletal thing. Costochondritis is a common diagnosis for chest pain once the important stuff has been ruled out, if you fancy a consultation session with Dr Google. Not much can be done with it afaik and it is not serious. But obviously you must first rule out cardiovascular issues.

If I did 1000watts for 30s there’d be alot more than mild chest pain!!

I had something like that once, a quick sprint up a last bit of an incline, and my chest hurt, my vision started to go dark, and I had a whistling sound in my ears and sparkly lights in front of my eyes.
I thought I was having a heart attack! I think it was the fact I’d just climbed 2000-odd feet and I was at just over 10,000 feet up in the Rockies – it was just my body sending a postcard, ‘Dear Oxygen, having a wonderful time, wish you were here’.
Oh, and it started to snow. Back down in Vail, it was 70 degrees and we were sat outside in shorts and tee shirts eating pizza.

Yeah , get it checked again .
I had chest pains in April while on the bike, seen GP an hour later, ECG looked ok in the GP surgery, prescribed aspirin and statins for good cholesterol ,went to see a cardiologist a week later for an ultra sound and they couldn’t see anything of concern and put forward for a treadmill stress test and that was in May, after me chasing the doctors and the hospital I’ve finally got an appointment on the 26th of this month !
Only ridden the bike a few times since then and not pushed the heart rate too much even though I’ve not had another pain episode, Its always at the back of my mind .
Good luck and hope you get it sorted

I had nasty chest pain years ago. I was sure it was musculoskeletal but went to A&E. When triaged they were sure it was musculoskeletal but still did a full range of tests – because chest pain is one thing you do not mess with

The odds on it being cardiac are low but not zero

I had something like that once, a quick sprint up a last bit of an incline, and my chest hurt, my vision started to go dark, and I had a whistling sound in my ears and sparkly lights in front of my eyes.
I thought I was having a heart attack! I think it was the fact I’d just climbed 2000-odd feet and I was at just over 10,000 feet up in the Rockies – it was just my body sending a postcard, ‘Dear Oxygen, having a wonderful time, wish you were here’.

It’s operating outside the usual operating parameters 🙂

Worth getting em to check it out though if your planning to max your system regularly and it’s worrying you but your body’s going to complain if your hammering it hard,that’s part of the fun.

Go to A&E with chest pain… have you on an ECG and blood tests in minutes.

They’re talking historical not current or possible not even same day. It’s not really Emergency Department issue, they’d wait hours in waiting room.

Good luck with trying to get to see a GP. Our practice repels anyone who tries to get a face to face, and then don’t bother reading your notes before they phone you on a phone consultation. You issues mean F2F is critical – with some go forward stress testing

Yes.

I went to the ER (back in the day) with AF (before I knew it was AF, just “my heart rhythm feels off”) and was on an ACG machine before I had finished filling out the paperwork. Heart stuff is taken really seriously.

Go to A&E with chest pain

They’re talking historical not current or possible not even same day. It’s not really Emergency Department issue

Interesting. Some years back I posted on here how when I went to my GP complaining of chest pain he did nothing other than pick up a phone and call an ambulance which immediately took me a A&E.

I said that I thought it was a huge overreaction and I distinctly remember you Drac dismissing my claim and insisting that the GP had followed the correct protocol.

I don’t doubt that advice might have changed but it is kind of hard to keep up!

In July i set off on a road ride from my house and within a minute i have a steepish hill to climb up.Part way up i had an indigestion feeling. Anyway carried on for another 4 hours and the feeling didn’t go way. Also all my teeth ached.I later learned this could be a sign of a heart attack.
Back home i started to feel worse so off down to A&E. ECG clear but blood test showed heart attack. I was shocked.
Long story short the angiogram showed 3 blocked arteries that stents couldn’t fix so a few days later it was a triple bypass.
Up to this i had been doing loads of tough road miles with absolutely no signs that something was amiss.
My heart showed signs of wall damage from the attack but thankfully a cardiogram after the op didn’t find any so it looks like its repaired itself.
Speaking to the surgeon he said people typically think the sign of a heart attack is the person clutching their chest and keeling over. It could be something like a feeling of indigestion or jaw ache.
I am back on the road gradually building up the miles,and managed a 50 miler last weekend.
Does change your outlook on life as well !

Speaking to the surgeon he said people typically think the sign of a heart attack is the person clutching their chest and keeling over. It could be something like a feeling of indigestion or jaw ache.

Yep my dad ended up with a triple bypass, symptoms were indigestion.

Well 37 isn’t old so that’s crap advice. If you can see another doc I would suggest you don’t say exactly when the pain occurs, just “during exercise”. That way it might be taken more seriously than just getting a response like “don’t do it then”.

I am back on the road gradually building up the miles,and managed a 50 miler last weekend.

Great news, well done!

I had a big heart attack a couple of years back whilst out on a cycle and two more since then plus a further admission for chest pain and elevated troponin in January this year. Unfortunately I do have heart damage but am slowly managing to get back into cycling and have even managed to (slowly) winch myself back up onto the Mendips.

As others have said, don’t mess about with chest pain, get it looked at ASAP. Interestingly I had some alarming symptoms a couple of months back and contacted my GP surgery who insisted that I went to A&E. It turned out that it was a false alarm (troponin was normal) and I was a bit worried that they’d think I’d been wasting their time. However, the A&E doctor said that if something similar happened again, not to bother with the GP and come straight back to A&E.

IME a medical cardio ‘stress test’ isn’t much use if you’re active – my employer sent me on one involving wearing an HRM on a treadmill with my max HR set at 80% of 220-age. I broke into a light jog for the last minute or so – most was just at walking pace.

I had really bad chest pains last year (mid lockdown), went to A+E and was seen to in minutes – ECG, bloods etc all came back clear thankfully, so it’s worth going.

About a year before she died, my mother had a “routine” ECG done and was told she had previously had a heart attack. Something she knew nothing about

Interesting. Some years back I posted on here how when I went to my GP complaining of chest pain he did nothing other than pick up a phone and call an ambulance which immediately took me a A&E.

I said that I thought it was a huge overreaction and I distinctly remember you Drac dismissing my claim and insisting that the GP had followed the correct protocol.

I don’t doubt that advice might have changed but it is kind of hard to keep up!

its not difficult for me to follow, and I’ve always assumed others:

– “Hey Doc, I’ve got this pain in my chest” (Possibly added to age, build, medical history, etc*) ==> 999 A&E
– “Hi Doc, I made this appointment to discuss a pain I got last week when exercising”. ==> Tell me more, and I’ll refer you to cardiology if it sounds like it might be needed (or if on examination / discussion it sounds like you need it I’ll call 999)

What A&E do not need is lots of people presenting with no current symptoms. What patients do not need is to sit in A&E for hours only to get referred to cardiology in 3 weeks time like their GP would have done. If you turn up at A&E without symptoms you aren’t going to get fasttracked like a patient currently presenting with chest pain.

*there may be all sort of things that affect the doc’s judgement to call 999 now, or complete an examination first. e.g. apparent pain level, shortness of breath, sweating, skin color, that particular doc’s experience, that particular practice’s location, what equipment they have there and who else is around to help them, how urgently you got the appointment,

In my case it was a current symptom. I didn’t have an appointment with my GP and only popped in because I was around the corner and thought it would more useful if my GP saw whilst me I was experiencing the symptoms rather than after they had gone (I have a particularly good relationship with my GP and had discussed the issue with him previously)

I didn’t expect him to call an ambulance! When I mentioned it a while later on here Drac, as well as a couple of other medically qualified stwers, insisted that my GP had followed the correct protocol because I was experiencing undiagnosed chest pains.

Now today when someone says “Go to A&E with chest pain” Drac respond with “It’s not really Emergency Department issue”.

I’m not criticising, just pointing that it is confusing if the advice has changed.

I’m not criticising, just pointing that it is confusing if the advice has changed.

It hasn’t changed you had chest pain at the time. The OP has had intermittent chest pain during heavy exertion. It’s 2 completely different scenarios for a the same base symptom.

Fair enough, misunderstood what you were saying then. Thought you were suggesting that chest pain in itself wasn’t sufficient reason to go to A&E. I took oldmanmtb’s comment to mean current chest pain not chest pain in the past.