Last August I experienced a tightness/bloated feeling in or below the chest cavity. The area felt tight and swollen to the touch. It was such an intense feeling that I went to the ER. Tests on the heart turned out normal. The doctor assumed that what I had experienced was an esophagus spasm related to the gallbladder. After further doctor visits, I had a CT scan done which came back normal (except for a haziness in the gallbladder area). The doctor gave me prescribed medicine (I believe Protonix), and the intense pressure went away a few weeks later. Now, fast forward to the beginning of the month of May 2009, the same symptoms came back. I initially had symptoms involving a numbness in my jaw and throughout my body, labored breathing, abnormal heart rhythm. But the prominent symptom that does not seem to go away fully is once again the tightness/bloated feeling in my chest. The intensity comes and goes, but it always there. I have been suffering for almost three weeks. I took a 10 days Protonix sampler (and I felt relieved for three days), but the symptoms came back on the next to the last day of use. I took apple cider vinegar, but it seems to provide only temporary relief. I have also drank red wine thinking it would help, but now I have been told otherwise. I have been told that it is probably acid reflux. I had an ultra sound done on the gallbladder, and although what could either be a polyp or the beginning of a stone was spotted, the doctor was not concerned. I may go see a GI specialist shortly, but I am hopeful that this will go away as quickly as it did so last fall. Another way to describe the feeling--like you are extremely hungry and you want to experience the relief that comes when the stomach growls, but it never does.