I'm Adam Powell.
I'm one of the pediatric cardiologist here at
Cincinnati Children's.
And chest pain is actually quite common
in kids and young adults.
But thankfully, the heart causes a scary,
life threatening causes of chest pain are very rare.
And when there is something wrong with a heart,
there are normally warning signs or red flags
and that's either in a story
that the child or the young adult tells us.
In the exam room when we listen to them,
or the family history, as the scary
life threatening heart causes of chest pain
tend to be highly genetic
and run in families very strongly.
The muscle causes of chest pain
typically has a story of maybe some cramping pain,
sometimes sharp pain,
but it's pain that's normally made worse
with certain maneuvers.
Those things can be taking a deep breath in,
actually touching the chest
can sometimes make the pain worse,
and occasionally different position changes
laying flat, turning movement,
all of those things are common in kids
with muscle type cause of chest pain.
The other hallmark of muscle type chest pain
is that it's normally pain happens at rest,
not pain with activity
Chest pain because of
muscle causes in children
can actually be quite painful
and sometimes beyond being painful it's scary.
Any time your child is saying
that they have a pain in their chest
and it can cause a lot of anxiety
and a lot of stress for both the child and the parent.
But thankfully,
even though it can be quite painful,
it doesn't necessarily mean that
it's life threatening
or it's going to hurt or kill the child.
So a child, especially a young child,
can interpret a lot of things to be pain in the chest.
For instance,
a indigestion, an irregular heartbeat,
difficulty breathing.
Sometimes, especially a young child
will say their chest hurts
and so, when young children complain of chest pain,
it doesn't always mean there's a heart cause of chest pain.
And that's one of those things where we discuss
causes of chest pain with your child
and your pediatrician and the parent.
We always try to get a little bit more history on
where is this chest pain located?
What is the child doing when they have chest pain?
And what are they doing
to make the chest pain better or worse?
Chest pain can really happen
at most any ages in young children,
particularly young toddler age or
young school aged children,
they can have chest pain from both from muscle causes
as well as other causes like growing pains.
As children get older
and start participating in sports, and being more active,
they can have other causes of muscle type pains.
They can have muscle sprains, muscle strains,
trauma related pains, particularly with contact sports,
as well as some of the traditional type growing pains
that can happen
during the periods of rapid growth in adolescence.
If your child does complain of chest pain,
there are some kind of higher risk,
more concerning features that a child can tell you.
For instance,
if your child's having chest pain with exercise
as opposed to rest,
chest pain exercise can be more concerning.
If they're having chest pain that isn't better or worse
with anything they do, meaning
that chest pain isn't better with big breaths, with movement,
with touching it, with food, with water,
or if they just have really, really severe
chest pain so bad they can't do anything.
Those are all more concerning features.
Notably, those would be things to discuss
with your child's pediatrician.
While heart causes of chest pain are very rare,
unfortunately, they can happen.
And some some description of a story
can be more concerning for heart causes
of chest pain in others.
For instance, chest pain that happens
and then the child passes out
is quite concerning.
If that happens, please tell your pediatrician.
Additionally, if a child's having chest pain,
that only happens during very strenuous activity
and it only gets better
if they stop playing and they actually it's so bad
that forces them to quit playing and quit that sport,
That's concerning.
There were other kind of
story aspect, so that can be both
with heart causes and non heart causes.
For instance, chest pain that happens with fevers.
It happens an illness sometimes can be
a sign of heart cause,
but sometimes not,
also chest pain that's just really severe.
And the child has to stop being active,
stop playing, can be concerned.
And lastly, and this is quite important,
any child is having chest pain
with a family history
multiple people in a family
with heart conditions at the young ages,
heart problems in their childhood, twenties and thirties.
That's also quite concerning.
And they should let their pediatrician
or medical professional know.