Angina?

[kbtrough]

I have had a stress test and an EKG, all coming up normal.  But i have occasionally had pinpoint pains in my chest, moving up to my chin, and then going to my shoulders.  It happened most recently in my sleep, but sometimes accurs when i am at rest, during the day.  It lasts only a couple of minutes.  i do not have a racing pulse, rapid breathing, or trouble breathing.

I have read about angina.  Could it be this?

[ChatterAlly]

With my heart attacks the EKG was always mostly normal. And the ventricles didn't show much abnormal on the ECHO.  It was the blood work that showed the MI.  But I do suffer with coronary artery spasms. (Like Ed states they were diagnosed as vasospasms) These are not easily detected.  They take some effort on your part to convince the medical staff. It took me a while to finally get someone's attention. There are meds for this, but I still suffer with them and wonder what and how much damage these could be causing.  Ally

[ed34]

There are different variations of angina, and stable angina is the most common. With stable angina it is easy to bring on the symptoms because they occur just as you expect, when the heart needs more oxygen but it's not able to obtain enough. Stable angina doesn't occur at rest UNLESS the blockages have become very severe but the discomfort would be there ALL the time.
You could be suffering from unstable angina. This is quite difficult to diagnose because you have to catch the events occurring. For example, if the cause is Vasospasm, where one of your coronary arteries is going into spasm, this could cause angina at rest and happen basically at any time no matter what you are doing. Catching the event is possible by introducing certain chemicals, usually during an angiogram. If it goes into spasm, they inject other chemicals to stop it. Once diagnosed, there are meds that can help.
Unstable Angina can be a long road to diagnosis. Spasms can squash an artery up to 100% in severe cases causing heart attack, but most seem to be just enough to give pains. When you had the stress test, did it bring on any pains? it rarely induces the effects of vasospasm but sometimes you are lucky.
When you get the pains, does it hurt to take a deep breath? Does it hurt if your body is in certain positions? Is the pain relieved if you change position?

[aheart]

I don't know which stress test you had, chemical or physical? But I can tell you for certain that EKG's can be mileading. My EKG came out normal too and I had a 95% block in my aorta. They found it in the chemical stress and confirmed it with ango-gram.
Next came a stent and its been great since. What I encourage you to do is keep going back until they find it. They would send me home and say I had GERD.My pain was high in my chest and it was pain not pressure like a heartattack. My docs also said that if you have pain in your chest and you take one nitro-glcycerin and the pain goes away, it WAS
your heart. I haven't had to test that yet. I'm sorry I don't know more about angina but you can look it up in medhelp and see. Good Luck to you-never give up!