What is the difference between chest pain and muscle pain?

Great question!!!: Muscle pain is exactly that: pain in your muscle, wherever that muscle happens to be, whether arm, leg or elsewhere. Chest pain refers to an area of your body (chest) that is hurting. Chest pain doesn't tell us cause which could be due to muscle, lung, stomach ulcer or heart etc. So if you say chest pain, we want to find out cause. We start w/most serious/deadly & work towards common & benign.

Chest pain: New chest pain in a 40+ year old person requires urgent workup. Causes can include pain in the chest wall including muscles and connective tissues. More worrisome causes can include angina and heart disease. You can't always tell the difference by yourself, but your doctor can definitely help you through examination, ekg's, and other lab studies.