I was born with asthma, it was bad when I was a baby, but it stayed managed until 4th grade, and again until this past year. I had gotten a severe sinus infection, and for the first time in a decade, I had started wheezing again.

However, as controlled as my asthma is, I still have SEVERE chest pain. I have no idea what the problem is. Its in the same general area as what you guys report, left side of the chest, in the ribs, no pain in the arm usually, but always sharp and stabbing. It also felt like it was going into my tummy, but kept to the left side. I do the same thing when I exercise too. My mom always told me it was because I was getting stressed, but there's been times where I thought I was pretty "not stressed" and I still would have these pains. I cannot figure out what causes them, and my inhaler doesn't really help them. Like the pain stops after a few minutes, but my chest still feels heavy. And sometimes it doesn't help it all. I've found that if I lie down flat and exhale deeply for a few minutes, no matter how painful, it goes away.

Even though I've figured out how to get rid of the pain, I'd like to know what causes it and to make myself feel better that its nothing serious. It really keeps me awake at night because it freaks me out when it happens. That's another thing, it mostly happens at night. I also have severe allergies, thus the continually sinus infections.

I hope you guys know, because I seriously have no idea, and I don't like puffing on my inhaler that much because albuterol makes your heart race...and I've heard many more interesting side affects of inhaler. Its for emergencies only, and I'd like to keep those to an extreme minimum.

I'm 48 years old and I've had fairly frequent and painful chest pain (leaning toward left - upper side) on and off for about 3 years.  I let it go far too long because my doctor told me she thought it was probably a rib that was going in and out of place.  But, the pain is bad enough (exercise induced or stress induced) that I know checking my heart has got to happen.  

Now my doctor is running all the right base-line tests for heart issues, but she really doesn't think it's my problem.  She mentioned that she thought she noticed me wheezing (I have clearly been this way long enough, it was my "normal", so it wasn't apparent to me).  Sure enough, once she mentioned the possibility of asthma, I remember 3 very recent coughing episodes where my lungs felt locked-up and wouldn't take in air... Duh!... How could I cruise through my busy life and miss such huge clues?  Anyway, this pain in my chest is usually and all-day deal.  It's better in the morning when I am rested, but any stress and it's worse.  

I know myself well enough that if I am lucky enough to be heart safe, but in chronic pain thanks to asthma, I will likely not approach it with pharmaceutical inhalers or drugs.  I will go with all kinds of other healthy living (trust me... at my age, I can only benefit by it), before I would try anything else.  

The EKG and initial x-rays looked fine.  Tomorrow is a heart test, and stress test, along with cholesterol and blood sugar checks.  I've actually gone as long as 6 months without this chest pain, so I KNOW if it is asthma, it was due to something I was doing right at that time in my life.  The trick will be to figure it out.  If my body improved before, it can do it again.

Best of luck to all of you here.

Thanks for your reply and I wish you luck on finding a natural way to deal with your asthma.  Drinking plenty of water is one of the most critical things because it keeps the mucus in your lungs thin but it may also be a good idea to carry an inhaler with you at all times "just in case", it may save your life.  Asthma is a serious disease and should you ever have a full blown attack you will not have time to go buy an inhaler.

I did go back to my cardiologist and since I had already gone through all the tests including an angiogram and they all came up negative it seemed hopless.  Then he gave me a holter monitor to wear for 24 hours.  It records what is going on in the heart.  I took several walks with it and each time I got the pain in my chest I recorded the time it happened so the doctor would be able to go right to that place on the monitor.  Here is what he discovered.  The heart muscle is beating fine, no problem there but, for some reason the muscles in the heart wall around the heart go into wild spasms and that prevents the heart from pumping enough blood when exercise calls on it to work harder, thus the pain.  He gave me a calcium channel blocker which helps to a degree but I still get the pain when I try to work out or do any lifting.  I think the combination of the spasms in the heart wall and my asthma walk hand in hand and stress plays a big part in this as well.  I have also noticed when I eat a heavy meal it happens more frequently so it is important that I eat several small meals a day to keep the acid from backing up into the esophagus which, by the way, also affects my asthma.  Body and breathing relaxation exercises work well too.

Hope your test all come out negative.  Good luck.

I'm 48 years old and I've had fairly frequent and painful chest pain (leaning toward left - upper side) on and off for about 3 years.  I let it go far too long because my doctor told me she thought it was probably a rib that was going in and out of place.  But, the pain is bad enough (exercise induced or stress induced) that I know checking my heart has got to happen.  

Now my doctor is running all the right base-line tests for heart issues, but she really doesn't think it's my problem.  She mentioned that she thought she noticed me wheezing (I have clearly been this way long enough, it was my "normal", so it wasn't apparent to me).  Sure enough, once she mentioned the possibility of asthma, I remember 3 very recent coughing episodes where my lungs felt locked-up and wouldn't take in air... Duh!... How could I cruise through my busy life and miss such huge clues?  Anyway, this pain in my chest is usually and all-day deal.  It's better in the morning when I am rested, but any stress and it's worse.  

I know myself well enough that if I am lucky enough to be heart safe, but in chronic pain thanks to asthma, I will likely not approach it with pharmaceutical inhalers or drugs.  I will go with all kinds of other healthy living (trust me... at my age, I can only benefit by it), before I would try anything else.  

The EKG and initial x-rays looked fine.  Tomorrow is a heart test, and stress test, along with cholesterol and blood sugar checks.  I've actually gone as long as 6 months without this chest pain, so I KNOW if it is asthma, it was due to something I was doing right at that time in my life.  The trick will be to figure it out.  If my body improved before, it can do it again.

Best of luck to all of you here.

I'm a 40 year old, male sufferer of chronic sinusitis who developed Asthma at age 29. A few years later GERD developed, and a few after that I was diagnosed with Diabetes. I don't smoke, and eat reasonably well. I go to the gym 3-6 times a week. Just last week I started getting chest pain symptoms and as a result we went to the hospital. The heart checked out okay.

For the last 5 days I have been at my wits end trying to figure out what I can do to get the chest pains to cease. I am presently battling a sinus infection (which is being treated) and hope that if this gets under control maybe the pains will taper off-- because they are freaking me the hell out!

It has been suggested that I reduce my caffeine intake-- which I have done (not happily). In the next couple of days I'm going to try different GERD meds to see if that helps. I'll keep you updated on what results I get.

I am 49 and am having similar symptoms. I am on symbicort, albuterol and nexium. My doctor recently put me on advair which was great for a weak but then I developed chest pain. It feels like a fever and pain in my airways at first then I start coughing up mucous that is white and foamy. I have had this flareup for two and a half weeks. Advil helps make the pain bearable. I belive my doctor thinks I am crazy. He will not do a bronchoscopy or challenge test for asthma and I cant see him for almost a month. The pain and shortness of breath makes it hard to function. He gave me nystatin and told me I may have a  yeast infection in my airways. Prednison makes me so sick while I am taking it but does seem to help after 3-4 weeks.