Chest pain when inhaling

Chest pain when inhaling indicates that the lungs are also involved. The pain often occurs in connection with pleurisy, for example. The pleura, which covers the lungs, is stretched with each breath and thus becomes more irritated.

When breathing shallowly, the symptoms become better, but then a shortness of breath occurs. The lungs do not always have to be primarily responsible for the breath-dependent pain; heart diseases can also trigger it. The most typical example is a heart attack, which causes chest pain and shortness of breath because the heart is no longer able to supply the body with sufficient oxygen. Even if the chest is bruised, deep breathing can cause pain, and coughing in particular often triggers a stabbing pain. The cause is usually a broken rib, which irritates the periosteum.

Left thoracic pain

If the thoracic pain occurs only on the left side, it is obvious that the heart is responsible due to its location. Possible causes of left-sided thoracic pain are, for example, an attack of angina pectoris due to narrowed coronary vessels, a heart attack, a heart valve defect or pericarditis. Very high blood pressure and severe cardiac arrhythmia can also be the cause of complaints within the left half of the chest. Pneumothorax is a typical symptom of unilateral respiratory thoracic pain. However, it can also occur on the right side.

Bilateral thoracic pain

Sometimes chest pain occurs bilaterally. This is especially the case with diseases whose cause is not in the area of heart disease. Chest pain triggered by lung diseases often occurs only on one side, since only one lung is affected, but can also occur on both sides. Musculoskeletal complaints can also be unilateral and bilateral. The frequently occurring diseases of the esophagus, for example, classically trigger a burning pain on both sides of the chest.

Chest pain under stress

Chest pain after physical or mental stress is not uncommon. Particularly in the case of narrowed coronary arteries as part of coronary heart disease, the symptoms often become worse or only occur under physical exertion. This is because the heart has to work harder under exertion to pump enough blood into the circulatory system.

In order to do this, the heart itself needs more energy and must be supplied with more oxygen and nutrients via the narrowed coronary arteries, which is already made more difficult by the narrowed coronary arteries at rest and then reaches its limits under exertion. The same applies to psychological stress, in which the heart rate and blood pressure are also frequently elevated, so that the heart has to work harder. In extreme cases, stress-related thoracic pain occurs during a heart attack when one or more coronary arteries are already completely blocked.

Pain can occur particularly during operations in the thorax area, such as heart valve operations or, in general, during operations on the heart or even the lungs. However, this pain should disappear a few days after the operation. This pain often occurs in the area of the stitches.

After an operation, thoracic pain can occur in the form of a pneumothorax, which was unintentionally caused by the surgeon during the operation, because lung tissue was damaged so that air could enter the so-called pleural gap between the outer and inner sheath of the lungs. As a result, there is no negative pressure in the pleural gap and the lung collapses/contracts. As other complications during surgery, pulmonary embolism can occur. Especially if the patient is connected to a heart-lung machine during surgery, there is an increased risk, but this risk is reduced by the simultaneous administration of a blood thinner.During an operation, for example, the spread of germs can also lead to pleurisy or pericarditis.