chest pain doesn't always signal a heart attack. Often chest pain is unrelated to any heart problem. But even if the chest pain you experience has nothing to do with your cardiovascular system, the problem may still be important.

Chest Pain Symptoms

The characteristics of chest pain vary depending on what may be the cause. Chest pain symptoms may include:

Cardiac causes

• Heart attack. A heart attack can cause pressure, fullness or a crushing pain in your chest that lasts more than a few minutes. The pain may radiate to your back, neck, jaw, shoulders and arms, especially your left arm. Other signs and symptoms may include shortness of breath, sweating, dizziness and nausea. All, some or none of these may accompany your chest pain.
• Angina. Restricted blood flow to your heart can cause recurrent episodes of chest pain — angina pectoris, or angina. Angina (pronounced an-JI-nuh or AN-juh-nuh) is often described as a pressure or tightness in the chest. It's usually brought on by physical or emotional stress. The pain usually goes away within minutes after you stop the stressful activity.
• Pericarditis. Inflammation of the sac surrounding your heart (pericarditis) causes sharp, piercing and centralized chest pain. You may also have a fever and feel sick.
• Aortic dissection. In this condition, the inner layers of the main artery leading from your heart (aorta) separate, forcing blood between them. Symptoms are sudden and tearing chest and back pain.
• Coronary artery spasm. Coronary spasm can cause varying degrees of chest discomfort. In coronary spasm, arteries that supply blood to your heart go into spasm, temporarily closing down blood flow to your heart. It can occur with activity or at rest. A spasm may even wake you from sleep.

Noncardiac causes

• Heartburn. Heartburn is a painful, burning sensation behind your breastbone (sternum). Often this feeling is accompanied by a sour taste and the sensation of food re-entering your mouth (regurgitation). Heartburn-related chest pain usually follows a meal and may last for hours. Signs and symptoms occur more frequently when you bend forward at the waist or lie down. Pain can also occur when you swallow.
• Panic attack. Symptoms of a panic attack include intense fear accompanied by chest pain, rapid heartbeat, rapid breathing (hyperventilation), profuse sweating and shortness of breath.
• Pleurisy. Symptoms of pleurisy, an inflammation of the membrane that lines your chest cavity, include sharp, localized chest pain that's made worse when you inhale or cough.
• Costochondritis. In this condition, the cartilage of your rib cage becomes inflamed. The pain from costochondritis may occur suddenly and be intense, leading you to assume you're having a heart attack. Yet the location of the pain is different. Costochondritis causes your chest to hurt when you push on your sternum or on the ribs near your sternum. Heart attack pain is usually more widespread, and the chest wall usually isn't tender.
• Pulmonary embolism. This condition involves blockage of a lung artery. Symptoms can include sudden, sharp chest pain that begins or worsens with a deep breath or cough. Other symptoms can include shortness of breath, rapid heartbeat, anxiety and faintness.
• Sore muscles. Muscle-related chest pain tends to come on when you twist side to side or when you raise your arms, and can occur in conditions such as fibromyalgia.
• Injured ribs or pinched nerves. Symptoms of a bruised rib, broken rib or a pinched nerve can be chest pain that tends to be localized and sharp.
• Espophageal spasms. This disorder of the esophagus, the tube that runs from your throat to your stomach, can make swallowing difficult and even painful. The muscles that normally move food down the esophagus are uncoordinated, resulting in painful muscle spasms.
• Achalasia. In this swallowing disorder, the valve in the lower esophagus doesn't open properly to allow food to enter your stomach. Instead, food backs up into your esophagus, causing pain.
• Shingles. Symptoms of this reactivation of the same virus that causes chickenpox include pain and a band of blisters from your back around to your chest wall. The sharp, burning pain may begin several hours to a day or so before blisters appear.
• Gallbladder or pancreas problems. Symptoms can include acute abdominal pain that radiates to your chest.