At 24(m), I had consistent chest pain for over the course of a year. Most days the chest pain would come and go only lasting a few minutes at a time once a day. As the year progressed, the pain would arouse several times a day lasting for several minutes to hours on end. After some seriously intense nights, I finally decided to visit a doctors office. After waiting around a few hours to be seen, I am finally brought into the examination room to discuss what’s going on and be evaluated. The nurse takes my my heart rate and it’s 76. We talk and she’s very sympathetic to what I was going through. The nurse eventually leaves and the doctor takes her place. I explain again to him what I’m dealing with and before taking any tests just says “you probably just have swollen ribs”. I’m visually pissed at this point as he completely disregards everything I’ve been telling him. I start grabbing my chest as the pain is kicking in, to which he decides to check my heart rate again and this time it’s 54 now. Looks at me with a smug smile and says “you have a healthy heart for your age. So should we reschedule a year from now to see where you’re at?” I even asked at the least to have a heart monitor and he refused, telling me “no need for that”.

This has happened with several doctors. I’m not taken seriously, because of my age. I hate doctors.