Upper back pain, sternum pain, burning, and palpitations?

Bump...?

Hi Kyle, I'm not a doctor but I'm studying to be a nurse, and since you're clearly worried I thought I'd reply and hopefully ease your mind about this issue a bit.   Your symptoms sound a lot like heart burn or gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD).  You stated that the pain occurred after eating a lot of brisket, and that it's a "burning" sensation in your chest and back which are common complaints of patients with GERD.  It might be getting better when you are exercising because a) you're probably not eating or haven't eaten in a while and b) you're most likely upright a large percentage of the time while you're exercising, depending on the activity you're doing.  Do a google search on foods to avoid for GERD and see if diet modifications make the symptoms go away.  If they improve but don't go away, there are medications you can try.  I'm pretty surprised your doctors didn't suspect this when you mentioned your symptoms.  You should bring it up with your primary care physician at your next appointment and have them examine you, because if they look at your throat and esophagus they may be able to see signs of stomach acid contact with that tissue.  Bad acid reflux can feel horrible, almost like you're having a heart attack so I totally understand why you'd associate the symptoms you're having with a heart condition... but since the doctors didn't find anything and you're young and healthy, I think you can rest assured that your heart is ok.  Hope this helped! 

Hey Kyle,

I have the same exact ailments as you.  I ended up seeing a cardiologist and going through a litany of tests to no avail.  I was assured there is no link between spine issues and the heart.  My heart is completely healthy.  I realized distractions like exercise, back stretches, light touching, ice on my back or sternum, nsaids, not nsaids, not focusing on the palps, and even the heart monitoring mitigated the palpitations.  Plus, sometimes none of these options worked at all. The heart is involuntary but can be affected by stress.  People can get heart palpitations simply by focusing on the stress of a loved one dying, for example, but they are generally temporary and psychosomatic.  This is a layman guess from my extensive experience with this issue, but it seems the spine and sternum pain have similar symptoms to heart conditions and thereby triggers a misleading stress response creating and/or exacerbating heart palpitations.  My back issues began from incorrect posture and the palps immediately worsened as my spine did, but I can now alleviate the palpitations when my back and sternum act up by realizing the palps are a psychosomatic stress response to this pain and they fleet away.  Since you have already had the professional diagnosis that your heart isn’t the issue, you might want to try avoiding playing into the palpitations and realize your mind could be misleading you.  Believe me, I fought this possible conclusion for months and have more ADD than math, so it's taken me awhile to learn to focus, but now I can what kind of bird is where are my keys...sorry ADD joke.  If you can’t focus away from them w/o distractions like exercise, you might want to try meditation.  You have to get them under control or they can turn into a self-fulling issue.   I fought the diagnoses of my doctor and a cardiologist when they denied the link.  It wasn’t until I began to coalesce correlations between distractions and the mitigation of the palps that I began to realize, it might be psychosomatic and for me, it is, I think. I'm pragmatic and this conclusion doesn't seem to be realistic so it p*ssed me off that I could exacerbate this ailment psychosomatically.  The palps sometimes gain control because i relapse and become unsure again, but once I'm back on focus, I can make them go away very quickly using only my mind now, so there must be something to it. This additional mental focus has also allowed me to control the weather...JK. Anyway, take it for what it’s worth, but these are my ideas, not from a professional, so be careful.  Keep up the exercise, a lot of stretching, and great posture.  Upright rows and bent over rows have helped my back considerably; however, stupidly, I haven’t had my spine examined nor have I had professional physical therapy, so that could be wrong as well.

Hope this is helpful to you!

Best,

Andy