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Heart Disease (Expert Forum)
Angina symptoms and shortness of breath
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Angina symptoms and shortness of breath
by rcole, Apr 25, 2005 12:00AM
Starting with my background…About 5 years ago I went to the doctor because of my heart “skipping” beats (~every 4th beat). Unrelated to this condition, this visit led me to be placed on a small amount of blood pressure medicine that marginally controls my BP (140/90 average). 2 years ago, I was diagnosed with an s4 gallop. At the time I was running 5-6 miles a day and an echocardiogram showed no problems. At my last doctor’s visit the s4 gallop was not heard. I have taken 2 exercise ECGs (5 and 2 years ago) and other than slightly elevated BP at the first one, there were no abnormalities.
I have 2 concerns I would like to ask about.
First, for several years, I have been experiencing pain in my left wrist. Most commonly at night and it sometimes will wake me up. Normally the pain will go away if I get out of bed. I can sometimes feel my heart racing, but not to levels I would consider dangerous. Occasionally, the pain will occur in the daytime and be accompanied by similar pain in my jaw, neck and teeth. It is rarely accompanied by chest pain and is never brought on by activity.
Second, I have lately been experiencing shortness of breath. This is not accompanied by other symptoms. They are not brought on by exertion or anxiety, although my anxiety does increase after I have difficulty getting a deep breath.
Any advice on these two concerns would be appreciated.
Thank you,
Rcole
I have 2 concerns I would like to ask about.
First, for several years, I have been experiencing pain in my left wrist. Most commonly at night and it sometimes will wake me up. Normally the pain will go away if I get out of bed. I can sometimes feel my heart racing, but not to levels I would consider dangerous. Occasionally, the pain will occur in the daytime and be accompanied by similar pain in my jaw, neck and teeth. It is rarely accompanied by chest pain and is never brought on by activity.
Second, I have lately been experiencing shortness of breath. This is not accompanied by other symptoms. They are not brought on by exertion or anxiety, although my anxiety does increase after I have difficulty getting a deep breath.
Any advice on these two concerns would be appreciated.
Thank you,
Rcole
Doctor's Answer
by CCF-M.D.-MJM, Apr 25, 2005 12:00AM
Hi Rcole,
It sounds like you are in overall good shape. Pain that you consistantly have at rest and not with exertion is very unlikely to be anginal, especially in the setting of a negative stress tests. Make sure your doctor knows your concerns, they will be able to best evaluate these pains since they know you.
The character of your pain does have an anginal quality to it. One additional possibility is coronary artery spasm -- kind of like the muscles in your calf can spasm, so can the muscle of your coronary arteries. If this is the case, the best medicine to treat this may be a dihydropyridine calcium channel blocker like norvasc.
Again, an exercise stress test will help evaluate for angina and also assess your exercise tolerance. Many things can cause shortness of breath -- an exercise test will help to objectively measure any potential exercise intolerance.
I hope this answers your questions. Good luck.
It sounds like you are in overall good shape. Pain that you consistantly have at rest and not with exertion is very unlikely to be anginal, especially in the setting of a negative stress tests. Make sure your doctor knows your concerns, they will be able to best evaluate these pains since they know you.
The character of your pain does have an anginal quality to it. One additional possibility is coronary artery spasm -- kind of like the muscles in your calf can spasm, so can the muscle of your coronary arteries. If this is the case, the best medicine to treat this may be a dihydropyridine calcium channel blocker like norvasc.
Again, an exercise stress test will help evaluate for angina and also assess your exercise tolerance. Many things can cause shortness of breath -- an exercise test will help to objectively measure any potential exercise intolerance.
I hope this answers your questions. Good luck.
