Horrible chest pain for 9 months
I'm 18 AFAB, about 5'2-3" and 130 lbs. For additional context, I've never done any substances in my entire life.
Around March or April of 2025, I began to have a sore back all the time, and it got so bad to where it was painful just to move. Showering got harder because I could barely hold my arms above my head. But that's nothing compared to the real pain that started.
About 2 months after my back pain started, it was around August 23rd, I'd say? I started having constant chest pain — but it was so dull, I ignored it for 3 days. Until that 3rd day, I was just lying in bed, and out of nowhere my chest pain got worse and I started struggling to breathe. I sat up and suddenly my chest pain was so bad, it felt like I was being stabbed really sharply every few seconds. I was just clutching onto my chest, nearly fainting and feeling so lightheaded, and I was so horribly nauseous too. That 'episode' lasted about 20 minutes (the excruciating pain. once that 'episode' ended, the chest pain didn't go away. It only got less worse).
So I spent hours just sitting in bed, holding my chest in pain. It wasn't stabbing anymore, but it was a really painful throbbing and squeezing like a cramp right in the center of my chest. I couldn't sleep with the pain at all. So about 12 hours later — at like 4 am I think? Another 'episode' happened again. It was even more painful than the first one, horrible stabbing in my chest, it was the WORST pain I've ever felt in my entire life. I was screaming and crying for like 15 minutes straight, and I was having crazy trouble breathing. My grandma and mom brought me to the ER. They ran every single test they had. Everything came back normal. Then, to discharge me, A guy came in, and said "...you just have anxiety. That's no reason to come to the ER...." I've had horrible panic attacks and anxiety my entire life, and I have almost NEVER had chest pain from it. If I did, it was barely there, just from hyperventilating and crying and stuff. But this was the most intense pain I've ever been in in my life.
For nearly an entire week after the ER, I was completely bedridden because it got worse. The chest pain was constant and never went away at all — not even for a few seconds. It was so painful I felt like I could hear it, every few minutes the pain changed. One minute, it was the worst squeezing pain in my life, the next minute, it was the worst stabbing pain in my life. And so on. The pain began purely in the left side of my chest, but it feels like this weird...ball of painful aura that just keeps moving itself. It'll go from the left side of my chest, to deep in the middle, to the right side, all the way to the side of my right breast, almost at my armpit. And it just moves around constantly, the location of the pain changing every 20 minutes or so.
I was bedridden for an entire week because I stopped being able to walk. I couldn't walk for longer than 3 seconds, and I couldn't stand for longer than 30 seconds without passing out. If I was laying in bed, and I tried to sit up, I would almost faint just from doing that. I did nothing for weeks straight. I just sat in bed, staring at nothing, clutching at my chest for 10 hours a day. I stopped being able to sleep as well because the pain was so bad. After that horrible week, I was still in severe pain, but I could walk again! Yay! So, the second week with the chest pain. It was still constant, painful throbbing. For three days at one point I ate little to nothing because I would immediately throw up even if I only had one bite of something. After that, about the third week of being in pain, I was starting to eat again (I lost weight from that too). Every week, the pain slowly got less and less despite always being debilitating. I had constant chest pain — and when I say constant I mean CONSTANT — for about a month and a week or two. It's not often, but sometimes I have this deep throbbing cramp right below my right breast, like there's a small heavy object in my upper right abdominal quadrant.
I got to go to the doctor when I started finally feeling better. After a month of crying in pain and struggling to breathe. For context, my family has almost no transportation because my grandma is the only one in the house who can drive and she's so old and sick now that she only leaves the house once every 2 months for food, and everything else is deemed unnecessary, pretty much. So it's rare for me to see the doctor, my appointments are months apart. Not to mention that a few times during that month, my mom screamed at me and rolled her eyes constantly at me, saying, "It can't POSSIBLY be that bad. But what the fuck ever, I guess we can get you to a doctor if you want it that bad."
I told my doctor what happened over a month prior, at the ER, how every test they ran came back normal and they said I had anxiety. So I got put on anxiety meds and an antidepressant. I was actually on some a few years ago, and I tried a few, but then stopped (both because none of the medicines I tried did anything for me and again, our transportation system renders it hard for me to get medicine so they just took me off). I believe the medicine I got put on were actually some of the ones I had in the past, Buspar and Prozac. I also had some blood tests done. A week or two later, when I said my doctor again, she asked me if there were any improvements. Short answer, no. Nothing changed at all. I was still in horrible pain. They found out my vitamin D levels were 18, so I took supplements for 12 weeks and now those are back to normal. I ended up getting an ultrasound on my gallbladder after a few months, results came back normal. Another few months later I got a HIDA scan and that came back completely normal.
After that horrible fiasco was over, I could finally appear fully normal and functioning. I started walking, eating, socializing, being able to do everything again. But the pain never went away, it's just 98% better than what it used to be. It's still constant, the pain just gets worse and better. Even now, I'm lying in bed and there's a horrible pressure right in the middle of my chest and I have to focus on breathing deeply every couple minutes because I'm having trouble doing so. The doctors have no idea what's wrong with me and I've been looking for answers for almost a year now. I've been terrified I'm dying and I don't know what to do anymore, especially since my family just doesn't like bringing me to the doctor and doesn't believe in that. I've been begging for another appointment for several weeks now.