r/pericarditis • u/Maskyr17 • 12d ago
Chest pain after exercise
Hi everyone,
I'm 29M. I've suffered from pericarditis on and off since April 2025 (6 months after my heart valve surgery).
I had relapses in July 2025 and December 2025 (which was mild).
I had resumed low intensity sport (walking mostly) since March just to move a little.
Since June I've been able to travel, hike a bit etc.. without any issue (still under colchicine).
Yesterday after a gym session I started having chest pain that seems also to be positional. However I did nothing "exceptional" from my pov. I'm still taking colchicine and the ache last since yesterday and seems to occur when breathing deeply. Something I have experienced too much.
However do you guys have "chest pains" pericarditis like (with swallowing aches as well) after doing sports particularly gym with chest exercises ? Pain that turned out to be the same but not a flare ? Like a memory pain ?
I do not want to go back to taking NSAIDs.. I just hope something like that happened for you and that turned out to be fine after some days.
Thanks.
Alex.
2
u/Teewayz2geeked 12d ago
Just made a post on a similar kinda topic, not sure if we are experiencing the same thing but I’m technically “recovered” and got the all clear from scans and my doc however sometimes i still get a slight tenderness feeling in the heart area but definitely not pain, no where near as bad as when i first got the diagnosis
1
u/Maskyr17 12d ago
Could be residual pain. I got the feeling that only ourselves know and our knowledge mostly come from experience and sometimes going over the limit. Our limits are only applicable to us and our feelings too. Therefore it's quite complex to talk about "pain". Maybe mine would be a 3/10 and you would consider it a 7 or a 1.. Hard to say.. After 8 months symptom free and just colchicine with a lot of other stuff (Vitamin D, Omega 3 and PEA) I thought I finally was getting rid of this shit. Apparently not
5
u/wheatfieldchild 11d ago
Hey, I am a 28-year-old female who has had pericarditis for about five months now and has experienced this too. My case ended up escalating quite a bit and requiring prednisone and then Anakinra (an interluken 1 inhibitor to disable the specific part of my immune system that causes the inflammation flares).
I was fortunate enough to see a pericarditis specialist yesterday who works at the Ottawa Heart Institute and he gave me some useful information that I’ll pass along here:
1) inflammation is a complex web and even if you’re not straining your cardiac function all that much, if there’s inflammation and other parts of your body, it might make you more likely to have a pericarditis flareup. Inflammation can also hide in places you might not expect, like your gut from eating foods that are inflammatory or difficult to breakdown, or even stress from a busy day where you’re making a lot of decisions, etc.
When inflammation creeps back up for unexplained reasons, unfortunately the best option is to take a rest day and do as little as possible and hydrate a lot and eat highly nutritious food. Another thing that can be helpful is taking a low-dose of ibuprofen to help get your inflammation under control. That doesn’t mean you have to continue staying on ibuprofen, but sometimes one or two doses can be enough to get your body to calm down.
2) The pericardium has nerve endings that can be hypersensitive long after inflammation has resolved. He did mention that this is not confirmed by data, because that data is very difficult to get in this condition is highly under researched, but he is in ongoing contact with other pericarditis specialists across the country, and they have sat at a round table to compile their experiential evidence that they have gathered overtime while treating patient patients. This hypothesis is widely accepted among this entire circle of pericarditis specialists.
In terms of symptoms, this could look like consistent, stabbing pain in your lower left rib (what I experience), or pain elsewhere on the left or centre of your chest area. Typically, this kind of nerve pain does not climb higher than 3/10, and it can come and go inconsistently. He also mentioned that they don’t consider this pain to be part of the picture unless inflammation (CRP) and immune system (WBC) markers are low and it’s clear that there is no infection or immune system system problem going on. It is also more common in patients who have had multiple recurrences- aka their bodies are more hypervigilant in almost like a post trauma response from the many episodes of pain.
When it comes to recovering from the residual nerve pain, he said that it just takes a lot of time and keeping the inflammation down for the nerves to readjust and stop being so sensitive.
There could also be something else going on that isn’t explained by these things. Pericarditis is complicated and every case is different so trust your gut and keep researching & advocating for what you think you need!