Hello doctor. I am a 20-year-old and  a year  one medical student who would want to be healthy in other to finish school and help my fellow humans just the way you are doing.
I have been feeling random pains at different intervals around my abdominal cavity and both right and left side of my chest. It is not very painful but it pains. I also feel headache and sometimes fatigue. I don’t know what exactly the problem is. Can it be due to too much thinking?
Thanks, God bless you sir.
Salman (by email)

As a medical student you will soon be taught to think of ‘common things first’ when it comes to diagnosing ailments. Headache and fatigue should make you think of malaria before any other diseases. When you add the random pains in your chest and abdomen to it then you will need to observe whether or not the pain is accompanied by cough or fever. If these are absent, then you may be right that stress is the most likely cause of your problem. You may therefore need to take more rest and so reduce the stress around you. I also think that you should treat yourself for malaria. However, if you don’t improve, in say,  another seven days, you will need to submit yourself for a medical examination which will include checking your Blood Pressure, Fasting, blood sugar and possibly a chest x-ray among other investigations.