I am a 49-year-old woman whose life has been affected by a variety of hard-to-diagnose health issues. These problems changed me from being an active, fit, successful professional to a slow and quiet person who tries to manage life while feeling awful most of the time. For the most part, I've given up on doctors. There is one situation that troubles me, though, and I wonder if I'm foolish to take the doctor's advice as it was given.
About ten years ago, I was teaching a computer class and I was stopped in my tracks by crushing chest pain. My jaw seized up, I broke out in a clammy sweat, and my left arm got pins and needles. I didn't want to scare my students, so I just stepped out into the hall and concentrated on breathing slowly. My coworkers all said, "Oh, at your age (39) that's a panic attack." I hadn't been panicked or stressed in the least, but I believed them. Nothing happened for a year, except I started to get opthalmic migraines. These are not painful, but they do make me go kind of blind for about 20 minutes or so. After that first chest pain attack, I've continued to get both opthalmic migraines and angina-like symptoms several times a year. Both come in clusters, but both things do not occur simultaneously.
My new primary care doctor told me my chest pain was most likely Prinnzmetal's angina since my attacks came only when I was at rest and that I needed to see a cardiologist, so I did. I told the cardiologist that I had lived with this for ten years because the angina-like issue always goes away on its own. He looked at my health history and after reading that I also have a long history of chronic pelvic pain, interstitial cystitis, IBS, migraines, opthalmic migraines, and had been treated for depression, he said (and I quote accurately)..."You seem very intelligent and articulate, but any doctor trained in Western medicine is going to write you off as a nut job. Given this constellation of symptoms, we really need to investigate the greater possibility of mental illness here, not a phsyical problem." He also chided me for being overweight. I brought pictures to show him that when my problems started, I was exceptionally fit and not overweight at all. I had always lived a very heart-healthy, outgoing, active life before all of the weird pain set in. The weight gain was from medication, not diet.
The cardiologist would hear none of it. He said, "Well, I'll perform due diligence, but we aren't going to find anything." He ordered an echocardiogram and a stress test. I went home and looked these up, only to find that neither diagnoses Prinzmetal's angina. I didn't get the tests done, and I decided I really, really didn't like the doctor. He said he was fine with that.
I recently read that opthalmic migraine is also a type a vasospasm. That means that I have two things squeezing my blood vessels: The supposed imaginary Prinzmetals and the opthalmic migraines. I realize the cardiologist is the one with the education, training , and degrees, but I do get concerned about a stroke or heart attack when these episodes happen. I do not have high blood pressure or high cholesterol. I do not smoke. I get enough sleep. I manage my stress. I have stopped taking the medications that caused weight gain and lost 25 pounds in the last six months, with another 50-60 planned (which will bering me to a BMI of 26). I am NOT depressed.
Is this guy right? Is it likely just a mental illness and I should not pay any attention to the vasospasm symptoms? I mean, if he's not worried, then should I also stop being concerned? Do I write it off as some game my brain is playing? I'm too embarrassed by the doctor's assumptions about me to go and seek out a different cardiologist. I mean, if all doctors trained in Western medicine are going to write me off as a "nut job," then what's the solution here?