Chest Pain and Stress

[Lemmonie]

How does this work then? How exactly does stress cause physical pain?

[ShadownINja]

This covers things. http://stress.about.com/od/stresshealth/a/stresshe...

[maddog993]

Psychological Stress related 'unexplained' chest pain is- by it's own definition- not really understood. It's a more obvious physiology with specific 'panic or anxiety attacks'/hyperventilation syndrome where sustained hypocapnia (blowing off too much carbon dioxide) produces somatic symptoms such as chest tightness, shortness of breath and palpatations, etc. The general consensus seems to be that non-cardiac stress induced chest pain is most likely caused by stress induced muscle contractions in the chest wall - the pain usually localized to the chest wall and comparatively generally fleeting and sharp. It's oft perceived similarity to cardiac 'tightness' type pain may be due to the similar locality of pain receptors in the spinal cord for the two types of pain.

Edited by maddog993 on Saturday 29th August 10:25