My son had this at 23. It was a pretty severe case, to the point that it elevated his cardiac enzymes as if he was having a heart attack, but he was not.

A. It's Dura Mater (with an A) like one of the meninges

This was one of my son Dominic's first symptoms. Dominic would complain it felt like his dad was squeezing him in a big tight hug. He could only take small shallow breaths. He would also turn very pale and had to sleep on 3 pillows most of the time.

Once he was dx. with lyme Dr. C started him on Clindyminic and quinie and Amoxil 10 day rotation. Dr. C requested he see a cardio. and they did the echo which confirmed the Percarditis.

The best thing was within 2 months of treatment Dominic's symptoms were almost gone. A year later at his follow up visit the echo was perfect. He hasn't had any symptoms of this again.

It took about 2 weeks to get a diagnosis for my son. At first it was attributed to anxiety with the way he would take these deep breaths. Doctors felt he was holding his breath.

As it progressively got worse and he couldn't sleep lieing down and eventually realized he could relieve it by leaning forward, that is when a doctor realized what it was. He began treatment with anti-inflammatories which didn't work and he ended up in the ER where they did more extensive tests, like the cardiac enzymes.

I guess that isn't a real common symptom, but a cardiologist said if the rub was bad enough it could irritate the heart and cause it to produce those enzymes that you would normally see in a heart attack, Considering his age and EKG, they trully didn't believe it to be a heart attack.

Even in the ER with the elevated cardiac enzymes run twice, one ER doc still refused to believe it was pericariditis. He was such a jerk. Not a cardiologist, just and jerky ER doctor.

She had decided - without Mom's knowledge - that she was sick of taking her abx...

She had ended up with pericarditis! We were told that since she already has heart issues from lyme, most likely. When she decided to stop taking her abx - the lyme had a "hay day" with the lining of her heart.