Sleeping on your side squeezes your chest and causes pain

Chest pain is a complicated condition. Some patients express pain directly, while others experience pain when pressed or squeezed. Regardless of the type of pain, it needs to be taken seriously. It is easy to sleep on your side. Some people may feel pain in their chest due to this. For this situation, it is important to find out the possible reasons. So, will it hurt if sleeping on your side squeezes your chest?

Chest pain is a common and life-threatening condition. The causes of chest pain are complex and varied, including acute coronary syndrome (ACS), aortic dissection, pulmonary embolism (PE), pneumothorax, pericarditis, cardiac tamponade and esophageal rupture. Among these serious life-threatening diseases, ACS accounts for the highest proportion. The misdiagnosis rate of myocardial infarction (AMI) is 3% to 5%, and the incidence of aortic dissecting aneurysm is about 0.5 to 1/100,000. If misdiagnosed, the mortality rate exceeds 90%.

The incidence of PE is approximately 70/100,000 people, the incidence of spontaneous pneumothorax is 2.5 to 18/100,000 people, and the incidence of esophageal rupture is 12.5/100,000 people. In 2009, the Beijing Acute Chest Pain Registry Study enrolled a total of 5,666 patients. The results showed that patients with chest pain accounted for 4% of emergency department visits, of which ACS accounted for 27.4%, aortic dissection accounted for 0.1%, and PE accounted for 0.2%. How to quickly and accurately diagnose and identify the causes of ACS and other fatal chest pain has become the difficulty and focus of emergency treatment.

Common causes of chest pain include the following:

1. Chest wall disease

Acute dermatitis, subcutaneous cellulitis, herpes zoster, epidemic chest pain, myositis, non-suppurative costochondritis, intercostal neuritis, rib fracture, acute leukemia, multiple myeloma, etc.

2. Cardiovascular disease

Angina pectoris, acute myocardial infarction, myocarditis, acute pericarditis, mitral valve or aortic valve disease, aortic aneurysm, rupture of aortic sinus aneurysm, dissecting aneurysm, pulmonary infarction: pulmonary hypertension and cardiac neurosis, etc.

3. Respiratory diseases

Pleurisy, pleural tumors, spontaneous pneumothorax, pneumonia, acute tracheobronchitis, lung cancer, etc.

4. Mediastinal disease

Mediastinitis, mediastinal abscess, mediastinal tumor, esophagitis, hiatal hernia, esophageal cancer, etc.

5. Others

Subphrenic abscess, liver abscess, splenic infarction, etc.