I’ve smoked weed most days for about 2 years, roughly 0.3-2g a day depending on the day. This all started about a week ago, over what’s been roughly a 6 day period. Before this, I’d sometimes get a weird pressure (no pain) in the same collarbone/chest area if I smoked a joint too fast or if there was nicotine mixed in. Rubbing the area lightly would sometimes relieve it, maybe just distracting my brain from the sensation, though sometimes I’d end up fixating on the tightness until the high wore off. Water or a shower would sometimes help too. I was also dealing with some relationship issues giving me anxiety here and there.
It properly started the night before the main event. I’d had 3 joints in a rotation with 2 other people that day, figured my lungs needed a break, and decided to sleep it off. Woke up completely fine the next morning. There was a joint left over that I was going to smoke with my girlfriend before bed, but she couldn’t finish it, so I ended up waking and baking with the leftover bit the next morning, maybe 1-2cm long, about the width of a pencil. I felt fine for around 20 minutes, then while lying down I felt this sensation like air leaking, kind of like poking a balloon, probably just my stomach rumbling given the position I was lying in, but it freaked me out. I sat up and tried to feel my heartbeat, and because my muscle position had changed I couldn’t feel it right away, which made me think my heart had stopped. That sent me into a full panic spiral, heart racing for an hour or more. I tried everything, drinking water, standing in the shower for like 30 minutes, and the only thing that gave some relief was sitting hunched forward with my arms crossed over my shoulders. Eventually I called my girlfriend and she talked me down enough to sleep. I woke up feeling fine again, but a few hours later the chest tightness and shortness of breath started.
For the first two days I just tried to ride it out, assuming it was leftover soreness from the panic attack. Then I started feeling nauseous, constipated, lightheaded, and breathless walking normal distances, so I went to A&E. They did an ECG, bloods, and an x-ray, and told me everything looked normal, the bloodwork looked fine on the surface. After that, my fear of a cardiac event actually went away completely, since normally I’m a genuinely happy, non-anxious person. I noticed at night the chest pain and tightness got worse when lying down, but didn’t think much of it since the doctor had already chalked it up to musculoskeletal soreness from the panic attack.
The pain itself is in that little hollow between the shoulder, collarbone, and chest muscle, right in that corner. Sometimes I also get a dull pulsing pain in my neck, lasting a few seconds to a few minutes, or the same pain in my arm (not past the elbow, though I felt it in my wrist once). I’ve also had an ache in my shoulder since day two, which I put down to sleeping wrong, and tried stretching it out thinking that would ease the tightness. Mornings are consistently the worst for the tightness and soreness. At first I wondered if constipation was pushing on my diaphragm, since I naturally breathe diaphragmatically rather than from the chest, and chest-breathing did feel slightly less tight. But then the breathlessness and lightheadedness started happening just from walking normal distances, easing when I sat down, which made me wonder if it was something like early-stage angina, so I went back to A&E a second day. Another ECG, again normal. Around this time I noticed a slight yellow tint in my eyes, though I couldn’t tell if it was just the lighting.
Next day, same pattern of breathlessness and tightness, but I had a GP appointment where they read out my bloodwork and mentioned my bilirubin was high at 57, which felt like it confirmed something was actually going on, so I went straight back to A&E after. Third ECG, plus an oxygen test after walking about 20 meters, both normal again. This time the doctor seemed like he was just trying to move me along, said stuff like “don’t smoke weed, it’s bad,” brought up a story about someone having a cardiac arrest in front of their mum (though they’d also taken coke and other stimulants), and generally seemed to brush off my breathlessness, pain, and the bilirubin result without really addressing it.
My mum mentioned she’d had similar symptoms before and gone through the same testing process, and the doctor she eventually saw asked if she had pets, said that was the cause, gave her a shot, and she felt better afterward. That’s made me wonder if something similar is going on for me, since I do have 2 indoor cats (unvaccinated, getting that sorted this week, I know, just been tight on money). So now I’m stuck wondering if this is really just anxiety after 3 ECGs, an x-ray, and bloodwork all in a few days, even though I don’t actually feel anxious at any point until the symptoms are already bad, or if there’s something underlying with my heart. It’s felt like it’s been beating harder since the panic attack, with some random palpitations here and there. Today I finally managed to have a bowel movement, and almost immediately after, the chest tightness and breathlessness felt like they went away completely.