48and been diagnosed with angina,currently waiting for hospital appointment but I have no knowledge of what happens now,my GP was not very helpful she just gave me medication and told me to wait and see what the specialist says,been prescribed Asprin (75mg) bisoprolol 2.5 mg and a GTN spray,
Can anybody give me any advice
Anthony
Hi Anthony
i am so sorry that you have been diagnosed with angina, but please don't be frightened as many if us were I the same boat, and in my case some 20 years ago.
i presume your appointment at the hospital will be with cardiologist. One of the routine test they will do to confirm your GP's diagnosis is the cardiac stress test. This is when you are wired up for ECG and get on the treadmill. The speed increases every few minutes and a stage will come when you won't be able to cope and that will be the end of the test. At that stage you will be absolutely puffed out. The Dr will study the resulting ECG.
Basically, I would not worry about anything. If they confirm the diagnosis then they will tell you what lifestyle changes to make, and may modify the medication.
i hope that all goes well.
Hi, sorry to hear this, lve had angina for so long now about 40+ years so lm old hand at it..
When you see your consultant you will have a ECG( wires with stickers on ends attached to your skin in certain places, this machine then takes a reading of your heart beat ...doesnt hurt one bit .
Following this you may be asked to have an echocardiogram Same sort of machine they use to look at babies in pregnant woman...doesn't hurt at all.
If they cannot find out the reason for your pain they may ask for a special CT angiogram this involves you laying down under a scanner ,a small drip attached to your arm .....a small amount of liquid is them sent around your heart and it is picked up by the scanner , it doesnt hurt at all , but you may think your peeing yourself when the liquid goes through !!!
The consultant will then assess your results, you may be put on calcium channel blocker , higher doses of beta blockers, painkillers or a tablet form of GTN ( l cant take these as it sets of my other heart problem )
If a reason is found for your angina like : hole in the heart.....value problem.......furring of arteries....there is quite a list , then further tests may take place.
These could be 24 hour heart monitor ( you wear it attached via a sticky pad to your heart) or possible a 27/7-10 day heart monitor.
There is also another sort of monitoring which involves cutting a small opening above the heart to insert a wire there to get more delicate readings of the heart.
As well as this they may ask permission to look down your throat ( under sedation ) to check things on the heart.
One other test which is more invasive is an angiogram , a cut is made in your groin or wrist and a small tube run up a main vein to your hear ( uncomfortable but not painful) you will be able to watch this on a screen like the doctors do, if a blockage is found a stent can be taken up into the tude and opened up to clear a blockage
What with X rays, scans, monitoring.........they will lm sure see if it is a stable or unstable angina ( stable is normally on exertion ...unstable is exertion and when sleeping ) .
With todays modern drugs and technics you will be looked after and hopefully if something can be done to ease or stop your pain it will be done.
But remember if you use your GTN spray and after 2-3 sprays your angina keeps coming back call for help or go to the doctors /hospital....dont do what this idiot did and wait until she had had 9 in 28 hours before doing somthing ......lm now waiting for surgery .
Hey, keep well, dont get stressed and remember we are here to help you or talk if you need it .
Lady Amelia. Xxxxx
Hi anthony,
Firstly does the medication work when chest pain comes on ? there are 3 - 4 different types of angina, the 2 most troublesome ones to diagnose is prinzmetal angina and syndrome X type, medication does initially help but over time our bodies develop a tolerence to angina medications, especially the GTN, in a single attack I have 15 + , because I know what it is I persist with the spray, when I usually reach # 8 - 10 sprays in 30 - 40 minutes I have to call an ambulance.
As what to expect from your specialists appointment, and one would hope it's a cardiologist and not a physician , by physician I don't mean a normal doctor, they specialise in everything in the human body, some do use a different title but it's generally physician. Everyone has pretty well explained what to expect on your visit so I won't repeat it, however I will say that if you have extremely high cholesterol the cardiologist may bypass everything with the exception of the ECG and then move straight up to the angiogram as in my case. I apparently have a very weird lipid profile, so much that it concerned cardiologists, hence the immediate angiogram to see if I had any blockages..
Hi Samuels buddy,no good me giving advice now you said said it all,well you know as well as i do there is a lot more we could advise this guy on but one step at a time for 1 Anthony, how you doing ?,had my morphine put up now on 40mg in morning .40mg at night but if like you know i get a severe spasm thats no good,still waiting to see a cardiologist.
Thanks for all your replies guys.
I've already had the CT scan so I'm now waiting to see the cardiologist,it's just come as a shock ,I've been a member of a gym for 20years I've always eaten healthy,
It's hard not to feel stressed but I'm trying my hardest,hopefully feel a lot better after the cardiologist appointment,thanks again guys
Anthony
Hi anthony,
Yes would come as a shock, but unfortunately we age and we either stay fit or our genes take over and bang we are hit with whatever hereditary condition we all maybe susceptable to. Think positive thoughts, I know it's hard but it's no use stressing any further to make it worse. wishing you all the best at your cardiologists appointment and I hope everything is top notch in the ticker department . Cardiologist will take good care of you if anything is to be found.
Hi peter,
How are things going at the moment for you ? I'm basically in the same boat, when GTN stops working I have been instructed to take 1 - 2 endone (5Mg each) if pain doesn't subside within an hour or so call an ambulance. 8 times out of 10 the endone works in the pain department and I'm still alive the next morning . for some reason I get severe spasms every 5 - 14 days unless high emotional stress, which has been the case for me and my partner, teenage kids deciding to take the wrong path in life and not listening to their parents......in the last 4 months can end up in emergency 3 times in a week. The other day a cold wiff of wind to the face set my spasms off.
Hope you get to see a cardiologist rather quickly. Take care
Thanks for your support Samuels,seems like your going through some difficult times yourself,I'm guessing the thoughts I'm getting are pretty normal when anyone is first diagnosed with any serious condition,how,why etc,
But trying to stay positive hope your symptoms get better for you,take care
Anthony
I was diagnosed last Summer, same meds but with ACE Inhibitor as well. They may want to run an angiogram to see if you have a main artery which is blocked, don't skip your medication.
Now you have really worried him.
Until he has more tests angina still has to be proved. Even a stress ECG may be a false positive. I've had two and a stress echocardiogram that were found to be false positives when angiograms showed my arteries to be clear.
Do you only get the pain when active? Does the spray actually help?
Did you have any blockages?
Not back then and that was 10 years ago, had an NSTEMI in 2012 and had another one to find a baby blockage 60% RCA . Had another angio done in 2016 still 60% @ RCA and then found another baby of 50% stenois in the LAD, I was told this is normal in a person my age and they would expect to find that in most people in their 50's (50% stenosis in the LAD)
Hello Derek.
I get angina at rest and in general 24/7 at any time day or night.
The spray helps ....sometimes, they tried me on GTN tablets that l take moring and afternoon ( not under the tongue ones) but they set off my 'POTS' another heart problem l have so l l had to stop taking them.
l cant have stress tests done on me as my POTS condition has attacked my hip joints so exercise activities are a no no .....in any case as soon as l start to walk fast l sweat all over very badly then drop my body temperature to 27 and below....so not very nice.
Lady Ami .
That is very tough for you. What medications are you on?
I had a drug induced stress echocardiogram rather than an exercise one.
This may not help but often the GP cannot tell you much without all the tests also he/she is not a cardiologist so won't know all the answers.
I totally understand the need to know everything but until the tests are complete it will be hard to give you any info and give you the proper treatment - hang in there!
I am going for a bypass next week (eeekkk) but really only an angiograme can show what is happening with the arteries of the heart so hopefully you'll have one of those soon and proper treatment can start,
Frustrating not to know but best to know the true facts rather than guess work.
Good luck!
Good luck with the bypass Heather. It is a pretty routine procedure to them and most people recover very well from it. The very worst part is when a couple of Physios drag you from your bed on day two and take you for a walk. In my case it was down a long corridor and up two flights of stairs. They did have chair on each landing to let me rest. When I got back to bed sweat was pouring off me and I was gasping for breath.
One thing to ask your surgeon to do is to remove your left atrial appendage at the same time. This is the area where blood clots form and cause you to need anti coagulants.
Mine was not removed and I went into AF as about 30% of patients do with the danger of clots forming.
To remove the risk this year (five years later) I paid to have an Amplatzer Amulut fitted, a filter that prevents clots from escaping and stops the need for the drugs.
Thanks Derek I shall make a note of this!
This is even more important to me as I was one of the unfortunate people who had a Stroke after my Angiogram, luckily I don't have much long term damage but I do have some.
I believe that as I was taking asprin for the Angina this prevented the clot causing more damage.
I now take Clopidogrel daiy (although have stoped prior to surgery)
I'll speak to the Dr on Tuesday/Wed and see what they say.
Thanks also for the reassurance I try not to think about it even though I know it is relatively routine. Hx
I worry about little things but with major ones that are out of my hands I put my faith in the pilot or in this case the surgeon. The porter wheeling me to the operating theatre said that I was the calmest patient that he had ever had. I said that given the choice I would sooner that he was taking me up the road to the race course.
When I was in one patient was out in three days and another in six. I was there for eleven as I went into AF and had to have a cardioversion that did not work first time. I also had fluid in a lung that had to be drained off. For that I had a tube leading to a jar to collect it. I also had an ECG monitor attached to me for the AF and had a suprapubic catheter in attached to a bag as I had a prostate infection when I went in and they could not get a normal catheter past my enlarged prostate. That all slowed my recovery down as it was nearly impssible to walk around carrying all that.
Im on loads because of both conditions including :
calcium channel blockers, Neofel xl, asprin,lansoprazole ,clonidine,bisoprolol,targinet,simvastatins , iron ,fluoxetine( effects POTS ) ,lorazepam ( for leg muscle pain ) paracetamol,tranexamic ( for bleeding under skin / joints) Oramorph, GTN spray and more ......l rattle at times .
l had a drug induced stress test as well but l was so ill afterwards ......all the machines started sounding off and l passsed out , when l came round l had nurses fussing over me ......wait for it saying ' the machine went wrong ' 😮
Hubby came in he said l was grey and cold and looked like death but the staff didnt really give a dam ....its been like this for 40-50 years , lve had heart failure, lung collapsing, shadow on the lungs , my heart twice the size
( half is swollen up now) mitral problems........all they do is add more drugs in and say rest .......
So now they appear to be panicking a bit .......at last now lm in my 60s they are doing something ......pah....humbug.