Is it normal to get chest pain when drinking alcohol?!
Answers: When I drink alcohol, I do not start to feel nausea. Instead I I start to get chest pain. After even one drink, my chest will start to feel really tight. It feels like someone is squeezing my chest so hard that it hurts a little to breathe. I dont drink very often (only about once every 3-4 months) and I usually drink the fruity/girly drinks like a sex on the beach or a singapore sling. Sometimes I can get two drinks in but sometimes I cant even finish one without feeling pain. If I stop drinking, the pain will go away in about 30-45 mins. Is this normal? Is it something I should be worried about?
Hi Rachel,
You may be getting acid indigestion from the acidity of the drinks. I don't drink much alcohol, but I do drink fruit juices, which, depending on what the juice is, gives me raging acid indigestion which feels like a heart attack!
If you have had a recent ekg, I tend to think it's not the alcohol, but the fruit juice which is causing the pains.
Cranberry juice is the worst, and sometimes orange juice/lime juice is bad too.
I mention this as the drinks you mention have fruit juices in them.
That's not normal. It's possible you are allergic to something. See a doctor.
Chest pain is never good. Alcohol thins the blood so it should not be an arterial thing. It could be an allergic reaction or could be an irritation of your esophagus. You know, heart burn.
Worst case you could have a clot and the blood thinning is breaking it up.
My non medical advice is to cease and desist until you get an EKG.
No.
That depends. Did you do a shot? Har de har de har.
That doesn't sound good. Sometimes I get heartburn from drinking, but not to that extreme. I would talk to your doctor about that. You could be allergic to alcohol which could have very serious side effects for you. Some people are allergic to hops in beer, but you said you don't normally drink beer. Maybe it's the liquor. It could be your heart or it could be something else that works with your breathing. EKGs don't always show everything, believe me. I have a heart murmur and they didn't see it until I had an ultrasound done on my heart. You need to see a doctor and if I were you I wouldn't drink again until you see them.
A friend of mine starts to find she has difficulty breathing when she drinks alcohol as well. It also brings on her asthma, she has been advised by her doctor that she is alergic to alcohol. It doesn't stop her though, I am always chiding her for drinking when she has to use her asthma pump. Naughty!
I'd reccomend going to your Doctor and explain your symptoms and he/she will be able to have a chat to you about it.
:)
ECG or not, get yourself to the Dr and tell him/her what's happening, in the meantime don't drink .. or if you MUST don't drink cold drinks i.e. cold beer straight from fridge, mixed drinks with ice .. sudden influxes of cold substances can cause a temporary cramp in the diaphragm which can be construed as chest pains
man!,.....if that happened to me, i would not drink at all,.....
It doesn't matter if you've had an EKG. One EKG isn't always enough. It may take many. Some problems with the heart take a while to show up. I had one such problem recently and it took over two years for the full blown condition to manifest itself.
You might need much more testing and repeated workups to find the answer to your problem.
Don't give up and pester your doctors until you find an answer.
It's never normal to have chest pain or have problems breathing after drinking alcohol.