Chest pain/discomfort during withdrawl
 

I've been a pretty heavy drinker for a few years now, drinking on average about 750mls of hard liquor a day, night and day, sometimes more but rarely less.

A couple of days ago I had a pretty big scare, my head felt like it was going to explode and I thought I was having a stroke. I went to the ER, I told them about my alcohol abuse but they brushed it off and didn't really explore it. They took my blood and gave me a CAT scan but couldn't find anything wrong. A few days later and I'm still suffering major discomfort. I saw my doctor today, was completely honest and was given a prescription for Benzodiazepines to help the withdraw symptoms. It's been about 6 hours since I took them, and they don't seem to be making that much of a difference.

Now, I'm not sure this is withdraw. I've quit cold turkey and went about 3 weeks without a drop just in the last month or two and I've never experienced anything similar to this. I've got a tightness in the left side of my chest and I'm having a hard time speaking normally. The doctor took my blood pressure and it was within a normal range.

Any thoughts? I've been out of my skin since Monday, and continuing to drink in the last couple days didn't seem to fully get rid of this discomfort.

Hi Proxyshed - welcome :)

It's impossible for any of us here to determine if your pain is significant or not.

I think chest pain is always something to check out...if you're dissatisfied with the Dr you saw why not see another?

D

Chest pain - GO to the ER.
Besides, we can't give medical advice.

I certainly hope you are back in the ER and complaining
to them as well as calling your doctor back.

This is a scary situation for sure...:yup:

Welcome to our Alcoholism Forum...:wave:

I second this for sure, plus what Dee and Double Barrel said. Chest pains are nothing to mess around about. Ask your doctor for more tests. Beyond that, we can't give medical advise. But, get better help.

I read this post several days ago when I was experiencing the same thing. It concerns me that the original poster did not come back and reply. I hope the issue is ok.

The amounts which were consumed / the symptoms and the timeline are very similar to my story.

I suggest checking your doctor asap as with all other people on here who offer good advice.

Here is what I learned in the past 48 hours. Sunday I had so much chest pain and arm numbness I thought for sure I was 1 flight of stairs away from being done for.

I lay down drank some calming tea and it did not help. Could hardly catch my breath due to intermittent heart / heat surges. I had been to the ER 4 days earlier (heart rate/pressure were AOK) and chose to try and stick it out until Monday when I went to see my family doctor.

Long night insomnia - panic attacks....

Went to doctors office first thing ECG tests etc... were all fine. Doc suggested I go back to ER due to severity of symptoms and be sure.

Back to ER blood work ECG all good! Doc said stay the course do your stress / nuclear tests and stay away from caffeine. It's entirely possible that all the booze has inhibited the body from balancing even the smallest amounts of anxiety.

Heart event issues and Stress/anxiety issues can be virtually identical in many people.

How long you drank and how much you were consuming will be mitigating factors on how long until your normal body chemistry returns.

Sleep anxiety could take more than 10-14 days to get back online.
Hope that helps calm some worries someone may have while going to the Doc to get a real opinion.