undiagnosed chest pain since a child?

I am 21, and I have been having chest pains ever since I was about 8-9, give or take a few years I can't remember. The pain is always about skin deep on the left side, and it's a sharp prick. It never stays, and always goes as quick as it came, and I won't have another for days, sometimes months. Sometimes the prick is agonizing and makes me flinch from the pain, and other times it only feels like someone pulled on a chest hair lightly. The pains have not gotten more or less chronic, or severe then when they started, and I can go months sometimes without a pain, other months I have at least 3-4 a week. I have never told anyone about them, but I think it should be time to find out what it could mean. I know it could be life threatening, but I keep telling myself that I have made it this far with the problem why would it take me now. I could use some encouragement to see someone about it because the fear of death never got me into the doctors office. I also don't want to take it up with my family because my father just got out of the hospital and I don't want to worry him or anyone more right now.