Fetched from my LiveJournal, because I am that lazy!

The last two nights, whenever I laid down on my left side, I had a crushing pain in the center of my chest, with some of the pain protruding toward my back. I normally sleep on my left side, although I move to other positions briefly during the night. When I slept on my back, propped up with a couple pillows, I had no pain.

Yesterday after I came home I did not eat for the rest of the day, to make sure it was not that. (But usually problems with a full stomach only show up when I sleep on my right side. Acid reflux, and not in the good way.)

At work today, I was plagued with bouts of shivering and extreme tiredness. I called my regular physician center (local clinic) and when I mentioned the nightly chest pain, they asked me to come in at once for a check. I only had time to throw on my jacket and tie my shoelaces before hurrying to the bus.

Of course, when I laid down on the observation bench, trying my best to emulate the position I sleep at night, there was no pain at all. I noticed that the bench was a lot harder. If the pain returns, I may try to find a harder surface and see. Though I am not sure that will fix the sleepiness during daytime, at least for the first couple weeks…

There was as usual nothing wrong with my heart. I told the doctor as much. My familiy is basically immune to heart problems, except for a certain slowness of the heart as we grow older. (Then again, my family is prone to age-related diabetes, and I have so far not the faintest hint of it, so perhaps I should not rely entirely on genotype…)

The doctor thought it must be something muscular that bothered me. That’s pretty vague. It is certainly unlike any of the back pains I have had from lifting badly or sleeping weirdly or playing roughly. Then again my legs and arms and back have been stiff ever since I bought the latest book, just before this problem set on, so who knows.

She ordered a bunch of blood tests that would, she said, reveal whether my internal organs worked as they should. I expressed amazement that I lived in an age where you could find out such things just from a blood test. I did not voice my suspicion that doctors use blood tests much like their predecessors used leeches, to make people feel better by having blood drawn from them. It worked for generations, so why not? Seriously though, I thought that was still 10 years in the future, to check up on liver and pancreas and the gang just with a couple vials of blood. I must have missed a couple issues of Science Illustrated.

The doctor was an intern, I think you call them in English. (American?) They have taken their exams but have to work with some supervision for a while at various locations. She looked underage. Am I really old enough to think that about my doctors? Oh well, at least she should be updated with the newest science (and without some of the old mistakes).