Transient Chest Pain in Summer May Be Related to Air Conditioning

In the last two weeks, two patients contacted me about transient chest pain. They had gone to the hospital for all kinds of tests but nothing wrong was found. Fearing a heart problem, they had also had 24-hour Holter monitoring and coronary CTA, both of which were normal. Still, this did not dispel their worry; they remained afraid of sudden cardiac death.

It so happened that I myself had recently had such an episode. A few days ago, after sleeping with the air conditioning on, I woke the next morning with chest pain. I was a little tense at the time, but I knew my heart and blood vessels were fine. Later I noticed that once I put on socks and left the air-conditioned room, the symptoms rapidly eased and soon disappeared.

This made me realize that my chest pain problem may have come from the air conditioning. In urban life, not using air conditioning at all in midsummer is unrealistic, but staying too long in an air-conditioned room is something many people cannot tolerate.

Air conditioning creates too large a temperature difference between indoors and outdoors; the blood vessels and autonomic nerves cannot adjust in time, causing a range of discomforts. When the indoor-outdoor temperature difference exceeds 7–10°C, autonomic and vascular adjustment cannot keep up. Air conditioning requires doors and windows to be closed, which raises indoor carbon dioxide and lets pathogens accumulate. The cooling process removes water, lowering indoor humidity and weakening respiratory mucosal defense. Add the cold draft, which causes surface temperature to drop abruptly, local vasoconstriction, and muscle spasm—and all of this produces a variety of symptoms.

Generally, however, this problem does not require medication. The two patients who consulted me had symptoms just like mine—they disappeared quickly and did not persist. So did my own.

So, if this is happening to you, there is no need to panic. But summer weather is hot and the body is relatively vulnerable; heatstroke and other accidents are easy, and when superimposed on the side effects of air conditioning, there is some danger. So in summer we should avoid overexertion and ensure enough sleep.

When using air conditioning, do not stay in the air-conditioned room too long. Depending on your own condition, leave the air-conditioned room briefly every hour or two, and ventilate the room for 10–15 minutes every hour or two. Install a deflector on the air outlet and use a humidifier in the room. Doing these things works better than taking medicine.

If symptoms persist and do not ease, seek medical care. Continuous fever, worsening cough, difficulty breathing, generalized pain, chest pain, joint pain, and similar symptoms that linger without resolving require a doctor's attention.

In treating summer exterior-contracted or pain-related diseases in TCM, one should consider the air-conditioning factor and treat the condition as a wind-cold pattern. Formulas containing Mahuang (ephedra) and Guizhi (cinnamon twig) may be used as appropriate; one should not be bound by the old dictum that ephedra and cinnamon twig must not be used in spring and summer.