Hey, Orangeman. Birdie's in there eating some much-needed dinner, but if you're OK with it, I'll try and answer your question. Glad you're going to the doc. She'll be thrilled to hear that, too.

If your heart pains turn out to be nothing serious once you've been checked out, sure, it's fine to exercise. It's good for you. It does strengthen the heart, and it's supposed to raise your pulse/heart rate. That's how exercise strengthens the heart, by making the heart muscle work harder. Then with continued exercise, it ends up slowing down your resting heart rate (as opposed to your exertion heart rate when you're exercising), which is an indication that it's having to work less hard to do its job. Hope that makes sense.

So the bottom line is yes, exercise is good for you and strengthens your heart. But considering your complaint about chest pain, you might want to make sure you get your doc's OK before you do a lot of hard, cardiovascular exercise. Just to be on the safe side. Don't worry, though, if you feel your heart speed up when you run down the hall or up some stairs. It's supposed to do that.