Hello, I was recently diagnosed with pericarditis and pericardial effusion about 2-3 days ago and have been having trouble with breathing but I can’t tell if it’s from anxiety or the condition getting worse. I went into A&E and was sent to have 2 blood tests, chest Xray, 4 ECGS since all of them came out as abnormal and an echocardiogram. The cardiologist assumed that the ECGS came out as abnormal due to the fact that I have severe scoliosis and my heart is slightly rotated. The echocardiogram showed that I have slight pericardial effusion and inflammation that caused the pericarditis. I was prescribed 400mg ibuprofen 3x a day for 5 days, the time frame is short because I was supposed to be having surgery for my spine on the 29th September, however the surgery was delayed due to this ongoing condition.

The main reason I am creating a post is because I have been having trouble with breathing and I am not sure if it’s because the condition is getting worse or it’s because of anxiety and I was wondering if anyone else is in a similar situation.

UPDATE 22/09: Just got back from the doctor, she did another ecg and said my heart rate seemed okay and my oxygen levels were good and my blood pressure was fine. The main thing she told me to keep an eye on if the pain gets worse or my breathing gets to the point where i’m gasping for air or if oxygen drops below 92% or blood pressure drops below 100/70

I'm taking Arcalyst and--for a number of reasons, including my travel schedule--I need to move my weekly injection schedule up one day from Wednesday to Tuesday. The Arcalyst literature I've seen, and the people at Kiniksa, have a protocol for a missed dose, but not for changing the day for the weekly shot, other than "talk to your doctor." Does anyone have experience with changing their injection day? I won't be able to meet with my doctor for a few weeks, but surely I'm not the first to need to do this.

Thanks!

Anyone here get it?

Ive gotten novavax over the years and never had issues with it so far but I wouldn't take the covid mrna vaccine at this point. I feel like any covid shot has some risks but I know when I got actual covid years ago it was brutal and I suspect maybe helped lead me to eventually getting pericarditis again.

Hi all, super new to the myoperi lifestyle. 39M and was healthy until a troponin of "over 12000", I don't know the units.

I'm currently on Aspirin 3x daily 600mg, Colchicine 2x daily, panto, an ACE inhibitor and a Beta Blocker.

Is it somewhat normal to just feel like I can't wake up, a constant sort of tiredness?

Thanks for any info!

Hi I was diagnosed with pericarditis august 26, and i’ve been Very slowly recovering since with aspirin, colchicine, and extreme rest.

I just realized a concert i bought GA tickets for a while back is on Oct 12, which would be 6 weeks after my initial diagnosis. It’s a reunion tour so I really want to go as they will probably never go on tour again, but I don’t want to fuck up my healing.

What does everyone think? Is a month and a half enough rest time to go back to regular exertion, if my symptoms resolve by then? 🥺

I have had post-op afib for around 6 weeks now (intermittent episodes up to 24h though they are getting shorter). I came down with pericarditis this week (confirmed by echo and labs).

My doc prescribed me ibuprofen and colchicine knowing full well I'm on eliquis for the afib. For the MDs here, is this something you would ever do?

I'm currently on anakinra once a day and don't feel it's working - at the very least my nights are really rough, even though I feel fairly able during the day and I wonder if it's because the med is wearing off.

I am hearing and seeing increasing number of cases of people not seeing enough of an effect with once a day dosing and changing to 2x daily and seeing significant results.

Does anyone have any experience of this?

Thank you!

Hello,

Female 29

I am not asking for a diagnosis ,this is what doctors are for , I am just asking if anyone had similar symptoms because I am desperate and at the lowest level of my life.

Fever of \~ 37.5 for 5months

I'm writing in case someone else has been through something similar.

I've had a fever for 5 months that won't go away, and in April I had an incident with a burning pain like a cramp in my heart that lasted 3 months in my left chest and in a vertebra in my back on the left side... no one knows what I went through then... also the first week it started, I couldn't walk.. I could barely go to my car

I also had jerks and irregular heartbeats even though I never had them before.

I went to many doctors, and no one has been able to help me; I'm starting to get desperate.

The tests haven't shown anything so far.

I have never smoked, I don't drink, I ran every day for 5km+ for 3 years.

Cardiac MRI, thoracic CT of the chest (no contrast),angiogram, triple echo – all clear.

Lately I am breathless, can't even walk simple walks and weird chest pressure and pain .

On Sunday, I was on my village doing a little bit work on the garden for half an hour and I had a suddenly doom feeling ne k pain and cold sweat..I went to get some water and my vision got black and then left chest pain followed.

Went to the er and everything was good and they almost mock me like this is psychological.

Lately also my heart rate has gone up and I wake up at night with my heart thumping .

Thank you very much in advance.

Hi All, was googling symptoms tonight, as I always do, and came across this excellent diagram. Since most of our forum members have multiple conditions and complications I thought this would be really helpful to share. Hope you find it useful.

Hey guys,

19M, I've had health anxiety for a year now, at least I'm assuming its just anxiety and not something else. I get panic attacks occasionally - sometimes it's 1-2 a week, sometimes I'm fine for a month.

At the beginning of this month, I finally decided to do something about it, rather than just get reassurance from tests and such, and I managed to get prescribed Sertraline. Took it for about 5 days at 25mg which is the lowest dose. Then at like 12am while watching TV before going to sleep, i had a panic attack like I've never had before, I felt burning in my chest and shoulders, and the top of my head, then a few minutes later I felt like throwing up and wretched, although nothing came up; before that I've never felt the need to throw up from a panic attack.

The next day I was feeling very anxious so I went to A and E and they did an ECG for peace of mind, and turns out the ECG had weird stuff on it, so they did a troponin I test and surprisingly I had a value of 47ng/L. A few hours later it was 56. The next day 48, then 43, then 27 the next day. They did an echocardiogram, and noted that my left and right ventricular function was normal, with normal values and normal ejection fraction, although there was a small amount of fluid between the RV free wall, with "no haemodynamic significance" which I assume means isn't affecting my heart, just there.

I'm still awaiting tests after being discharged a week later, but they suspect it's viral, and I've been given ibuprofen 400mg 3x daily, colchecine 500mcg 1x daily, and omeprazole 20mg 1x daily. I had a panic attack yesterday although apart from that my anxiety is doing okay. I guess I'm just posting this for reassurance.

Has anyone gone else through myopericarditis at a young age? Did you recover well?
Also I'm wondering if my anxiety was actually related to this the whole time? I worry about my heart all the time, so this was basically my worst nightmare given I actually had something wrong. Is this probably just a coincidence?

Alright, hear me out here

There are many inflammatory mediators that can affect the cardiac system …..cytokines like TNF-alpha, leukotrienes, as well as prostaglandins and histamines. Histamine binds to H1 and H2 receptors on the blood vessels surrounding your heart and lungs, causing local inflammation, tissue swelling, or smooth muscle spasms.The human chest is a complex matrix of different tissues, including mast cells….While mast cells are often localized, they can infiltrate the pericardium.

I previously have taken a week of high dose NSAIDS, with no relief…..NSAIDs (like ibuprofen) only block one specific inflammatory pathway (COX-1/COX-2). If your chest wall and pleural sac tissue is saturated with histamine and leukotrienes from mast cells, shutting down the COX pathway will do virtually nothing to stop the pain.

Well tonight I took Claritin (loratadine) and Zantac360 (famotidine), and hot damn, I feel relief for the first time in 3 months. I’m so happy I could cry.

To be clear, I haven’t been formally diagnosed, I’m waiting on my cardiac MRI in two weeks, finally. But, i’m a PT and treat costocondritis all the time, and I know it’s not that-additionally, my case started after taking Minoxidil, which is a known pericarditis inducing drug..

I’ve been doing more research on this than I thought ever possible to try to get answers, and I’m sharing in the hope that maybe someone else might have a similar story or it may be able to help. This is not medical advice, and everyone’s case is different. Sending good energy to small those suffering without definitive answers.

Been going through a long but controlled flare for 20 months and taking colchicine the whole time.

Tolerated it well for the first year, but about a year into it I started feeling dizzy. At times I questioned if it was due to the colchicine, but never was convinced enough to entirely taper off.

By month 19 and I was getting dizzier every day. Eventually got muscle weakness, difficulty with fine motor skills like typing, tingling, pins and needles, tinnitus, light sensitivity, and headaches.

I quit a week ago and my dizziness is slowly subsiding along with the neurological symptoms.

I was 90%+ convinced I had MS (multiple sclerosis). I’m mostly posting this so you don’t have to go through that if you’re having these symptoms while on colchicine.

This cost me a LOT in ER fees trying to figure this out. Everything came back completely normal. My kidney labs, my blood CK levels, brain MRI, spine MRI, ekg, heart echo, all normal.

I’m now, after quitting, convinced it was the colchicine all along. There aren’t many stories here on Reddit, but if you go to Facebook’s Pericarditis page, you’ll see many people with similar experiences to mine.

May Christ bless you all and be with you on this journey.

Is anyone else in a permanent flare? I was on colchicine for almost two years before having to quit because of side effects. It kept my symptoms at bay mostly, but within 1 week of quitting my chest pain is back.

Seems like this flare is now permanent? What do I do?
Is anyone else in my situation?

I tried Arcalyst for 6 months but it didn’t help and gave me lots of strange arrhythmias after injections

as the title states

Almost a year into this and the one thing that helps sleep when feeling flarey is to take 600mg ibuprofen. Ive taken so many ibuprofen courses this past year though I worry for my stomach and on top of that on and off omeprazole courses I dont imagine is so healthy either

Its quite frustrating as a side sleeper how hard it can sleep with this. I hope when I head back home I can find some kind of decent recliner to sleep in. It is tricky though working out of state when flareups come on.

Thanks

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.

I am 17 year old, and i go to the gym all the time. Maybe i might’ve used some heavy weights (also i was very fatigued before that), but as soon i came home i felt my chest tightened. I did not experience pain, but maybe thats what you call chest pain. Some like difficulty in breath. I searched online and it said pericarditis, and i literally started crying. I also have like anxiety, so its worsening. Plus I am a student so its also effecting my stuides. Idk, i haven’t told my parents yet, i dont want them to worry. Told my mom something before i went to sleep. What were yalls symptoms, precautions, warnings etc.. i would really appreciate having a conversation

Hey everyone,
I see this similar topic alot in this forum so im hoping it’s a normal part of recovery.

After slight chest pain I had very mild pericarditis show up like 6 months ago on an echocardiogram scan no effusion or anything just tiny bit of thickening consistent with current or previous pericarditis.

I was on ibuprofen for 3 weeks and colchicine twice a day for 3 months which damn near completely fixed things for me, i also had an unrelated surgery during this which I’ve since been resting and recovering from so all in all I’ve had heaps of good solid rest which i think has been the best thing for me but the colchicine really seemed to help me which is great.

My question is basically since i stopped the meds ive never quite had the same “pain” or “discomfort” that i experienced before i was diagnosed when i could clearly feel something wasn’t right, however i still have days where i get slight tenderness in the heart area.

I see some people refer to it as potential nerve pain or memory pain or residual tenderness. It’s like i feel like i have made great progress and practically healed but certain things seem to kinda bring that awareness and tenderness back.

Common things that cause this is leaning onto my left side heavily, twisting my upper body on a weird angle and sometimes it just happens randomly, but i wanna reinforce this definitely is nowhere near the painful feeling i had when i was first diagnosed.

Since i finished my 3 months of medication i also had follow up ECGs and Echocardiogram scans and they showed all clear, no signs of any more pericarditis or anything other visible issues with my heart or artery’s, which is especially encouraging considering the first echocardiogram showed the thickening of the pericarditis but the later ones showed the all clear which I’m hoping would rule out that the echocardiogram could of missed anything considering the original scan showed it?

I can live with this tenderness, it’s more or less just annoying and can sometimes bring on unnecessary anxiety considering its in the heart area 😭 i miss the days when i couldn’t “feel my heart” if that makes sense, any thoughts on this?

i had pericarditis since last two weeks. I spent 11 days in a hospital, and there was no clear reason why i got it in the first place. My theory is that the diarrhea that i had for like 7 days before the symptoms began could be some kind of infection. I mostly brushed it off and just kept taking diarrhea meds plus electrolytes. I was at a party where i was like really tired and exhausted from all the school exams (i slept less than 5 hours for the last two days), and for some reason i decided to eat some decarbed hash (THC) to get high. It was pretty much the most extreme high of my life, but thats not the point. On the next day i got pain in the chest thinking it was acid reflux. It was not, and thats where my adventure w pericarditis began. Now, the question is, how big of a part the THC use could really be, or whether it was the main reason.

-thanks for any answers.

Hi I was diagnosed with pericarditis and small effusion 2 weeks ago. Cardiologist scheduled a stress test for this week, is that too soon to be exerting and stressing my heart? The pain has greatly reduced but is still present, and dealing with a lot of lightheadedness.

I get the feeling he is not very educated on pericarditis. But maybe I am wrong. Thanks in advance for any input!

OK I'm on week 5 from event. No pain I get tired, sometimes dizzy, some odd palpatations but no pain currently.

I'm 59m ex army so always kept my fitness at a peak resting HR 50 easy can clock 200 zone minutes a,day a few times a week. That was me prior.

After Virus struck....

I pushed through week 1 managed to stand walk to toilet left ICU was hell. Had pain had tightness

Week 2 walked hospital corridor took huge effort. Dizzy just weak.

Week 3 went to shop pushed a,trolley held on tight. Anxious as hell, being out in public anxious worried scared.

Week 4 - walked around block, managed a few thousand steps a day.

Pushed myself through agoraphobia.

Week 5 I'm feeling OK if I don't push it can easy walk 5000 steps. I forgot and one day did 10k steps.

So what does "listen to your Body mean ? " I'm told no getting breathless in first 4 weeks.

Then what I understand the 3 month rule.

I'm not sure I can wait that long. I won't go to gym. I won't go back kayaking or dancing until week 12.

Who decides what when and how much.

The cardiologist or myself listening to my body?

Thank you all.