It is essential that people with asthma understand which chest pain related symptoms might occur so they can seek treatment, if necessary. The coughing and wheezing experienced during an asthma attack can lead to chest discomfort afterward. When this occurs, a person should consider their symptoms, noting, for example, whether their chest is sore or whether they are feeling a sharp pain.
Two primary medical conditions can cause chest pain following an asthma attack: pneumomediastinum and pneumothorax. This condition happens when a person develops air in their mediastinum, which is the space between the lungs and the other organs in the chest cavity, including the heart. A pneumomediastinum can increase pressure in the lungs that can cause pain. The condition is rare but can occur in those with asthma, most commonly in younger people.
The pain will usually radiate to the neck or back. Other symptoms may include:. If a person has a pneumomediastinum, the condition will usually resolve itself. However, a person will often feel some chest discomfort and pain while the condition improves. Sometimes, this increase in pressure can lead to pneumothorax. A pneumothorax occurs when a lung collapses and air leaks into the space between the lungs and the chest wall.
According to an article in the Journal of Thoracic Disease , spontaneous pneumothorax often occurs in young, healthy adults who have asthma. With the right treatment approach, this unwelcome symptom can be effectively controlled. Asthma may not be the reason for your chest pain. Several other conditions can also cause this symptom.
Heartburn is a common culprit for burning or painful sensations in the chest. Other digestive problems, such as gallstones or swallowing disorders, can cause these symptoms as well. Chest pain or discomfort is often a hallmark sign of a panic attack.
You may also feel like your heart is racing and experience shortness of breath. Pain syndromes, such as fibromyalgia , cause persistent sore muscles that you might feel in the chest area. With this condition , the cartilage of your rib cage becomes inflamed and painful. That sometimes causes chest pain. This condition , which is characterized by high blood pressure in the arteries that carry blood to the lungs, can produce discomfort in the chest.
When air leaks into the area between the lungs and ribs, your lung can collapse. Many people experience chest pain when this happens. As you try to exhale, your narrowed bronchi airways trap air inside your lungs. Even though it is an obstructive disease, you struggle to inhale when you have asthma as well.
When asthma acts up, your bronchi constrict narrow , and your lungs become inflamed and produce excess mucus. This results in airway limitation that makes it hard for air to pass through, even as you put all your effort into breathing. All of these effects of asthma can lead to the sensation of chest tightness. A number of triggers can lead to worsened chest tightness when you have asthma:.
Recurrent episodes of chest tightness may indicate that your asthma isn't well-controlled. When you have sudden chest tightness with asthma, it can be a sign that your symptoms are on the way to escalating into an asthma attack if you do not follow your asthma action plan.
When chest tightness is one of your most noticeable symptoms, it may take your medical team longer to determine whether your asthma is to blame. This is because chest tightness is an especially concerning sign of life-threatening issues, including heart disease or pulmonary embolism PE.
If you seem to be in distress, your medical team will rapidly assess you to determine if you are experiencing a medical emergency, such as a heart attack or a lung emergency like a PE or a pneumothorax. Often, people who have chest tightness due to these and other emergencies are visibly short of breath.
Your medical team will check your pulse, respiratory rate, and blood pressure. Depending on your symptoms, you may have an electrocardiogram EKG to check your heart rhythm and pulse oximetry to check your oxygen saturation as well. If your chest tightness is not a sign of an emergency, your healthcare provider may order further tests to help determine whether asthma or another lung disease is the cause. The list of chronic conditions that can cause chest tightness along with other symptoms similar to those of asthma is long and includes chronic obstructive pulmonary disease COPD , lung cancer , and pulmonary sarcoidosis.
Tests you may need include:. If you have an established diagnosis of asthma with chest tightness, it's important that you promptly use your rescue asthma treatment when you develop this symptom.
Ideally, you would also regularly use controller asthma treatment to avoid having episodes of chest tightness in the first place. For standard asthma treatment, rescue medication includes short-acting bronchodilator inhalers like albuterol.
Maintenance therapies include inhaled corticosteroids like Pulmicort budesonide , long-acting bronchodilators like Spiriva tiotropium bromide , and immunomodulators like Dupixent dupilumab. Sometimes chest tightness in asthma is relived with bronchodilators, but some people with asthma experience improvement of chest tightness only with other asthma treatments.
Chest tightness is a sign of severe asthma that may be less responsive or refractory to standard asthma treatment. The latter is associated with inflammation and bronchoconstriction, while the former is only associated with inflammation. Unfortunately, people with severe asthma have to deal with breathing issues way more often than anyone should, and it can be completely terrifying.
This can then make the muscles surrounding your airways constrict, making it even harder to breathe, and cause your airways to produce more mucus than normal, further compounding the problem. All together, this can lead to asthma symptoms like shortness of breath , coughing, wheezing a whistling sound when you breathe , and chest tightness or pain, according to the NHLBI. Like most health conditions , asthma severity runs along a spectrum, Emily Pennington, M. Others can have asthma that is basically an ever-present problem and might result in scary asthma attacks, which is when symptoms ramp up in severity and can even become life-threatening.
The most important part of preventing severe asthma attacks is knowing you have the condition in the first place. Here are the top signs you have severe asthma, plus which kinds of treatment may help.
This is the most serious classification of this condition, according to the Mayo Clinic. Pennington says. During the wee hours of the night, your body can release higher levels of the stress hormone cortisol which may cause more inflammation, including in your airways, she explains.
Voila, nighttime asthma flares. While people who have less intense cases of asthma may experience this here and there when they have asthma attacks, people with severe asthma may have airways that are pretty much constantly inflamed, Raymond Casciari, M.
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