Angina pain is often described as squeezing, pressure, heaviness, tightness or pain in the chest. It may feel like a heavy weight lying on the chest. Angina may be a new pain that needs to be checked by a health care provider, or recurring pain that goes away with treatment.
Chest pain
feels tight, dull or heavy – although some people (especially women) may have sharp, stabbing pain. spreads to your arms, neck, jaw or back. is triggered by physical exertion or stress. stops within a few minutes of resting.
Angina can be confused with gallbladder disease, stomach ulcers and acid reflux. It usually goes away within a few minutes with rest or with the use of nitroglycerin. Angina is not the same as a heart attack although the symptoms may be similar. Chest pain that causes a heart attack does not typically stop.
The main symptom of angina is chest pain. Chest pain caused by angina usually: feels tight, dull or heavy – it may spread to your arms, neck, jaw or back.
Some people who have myocardial ischemia don't have any signs or symptoms (silent ischemia). When they do occur, the most common is chest pressure or pain, typically on the left side of the body (angina pectoris).
Angina pain is often described as squeezing, pressure, heaviness, tightness or pain in the chest. It may feel like a heavy weight lying on the chest. Angina may be a new pain that needs to be checked by a health care provider, or recurring pain that goes away with treatment.
Symptoms of unstable angina include: Tight or crushing pain in your chest that may spread to other areas in your upper body. Chest pain that happens even when you're not exerting yourself.
Diagnosing angina
Your doctor can suspect a diagnosis of angina based on your description of your symptoms, when they appear and your risk factors for coronary artery disease. Your doctor will likely first do an electrocardiogram (ECG) to help determine what additional testing is needed to confirm the diagnosis.
Unlike a heart attack, the heart muscle is not damaged forever, and the pain usually goes away with rest. Knowing the types of angina and how they differ is important.
Angina is rare in people under 35 years of age unless that person has other health problems which make angina more common – such as diabetes or smoking tobacco. Besides age, smoking, and diabetes, risk factors include a history of hypertension or high cholesterol.
High blood pressure makes your heart work harder and can damage the lining of your arteries. If you already have angina, high blood pressure could make your symptoms worse and increase the risk of having a heart attack. If you have high blood pressure, it's essential that you try to reduce it.
You are having angina when you are sitting (rest angina) You are feeling tired more often. You are feeling faint or lightheaded. Your heart is beating very slowly (less than 60 beats a minute) or very fast (more than 120 beats a minute), or it is not steady (regular)
Angina tends to radiate, causing referred pain all around the shoulder and neck. Anxiety chest pains/hyperventilation tend to be more localized near the heart. Anxiety chest pains are usually sharper, although not always.
Usually lasts 5 minutes; rarely more than 15 minutes. Triggered by physical activity, emotional stress, heavy meals, extreme cold or hot weather. Relieved within 5 minutes by rest, nitroglycerin or both. Pain in the chest that may spread to the jaw, neck, arms, back or other areas.
There are several types of angina. Stable angina (angina pectoris) is the most common type, and it's caused by coronary artery disease. Rest and medication can ease your angina and improve your quality of life. Severe or unexpected angina signals a heart attack and needs immediate medical care.
It can be difficult to distinguish heart-related chest pain from other types of chest pain. However, chest pain that is less likely due to a heart problem is more often associated with: A sour taste or a sensation of food reentering your mouth. Trouble swallowing.
Angina is temporary chest pain or discomfort that happens when your heart doesn't get enough blood and oxygen. Angina can be a symptom of coronary heart disease. If angina symptoms continue for more than 10 minutes, are severe or getting worse, call Triple Zero (000) immediately for an ambulance.
It could be a lung disorder, such as a blood clot to the lungs, known as a pulmonary embolism. Additionally, other causes of chest discomfort include spasm of the esophagus, diseases of the aorta, gastroesophageal reflux disease, musculoskeletal pain, fast heart rhythm abnormalities and costochondritis.
A health care provider threads a thin tube (catheter) through a blood vessel in the arm or groin to an artery in the heart and injects dye through the catheter. The dye makes the heart arteries show up more clearly on an X-ray. Your health care provider might call this type of X-ray an angiogram.
Microvascular angina is also one of the conditions included under the umbrella term Ischaemia with Non-Obstructive Coronary Arteries (INOCA), which means there is restricted blood flow to the heart, but this is not caused by fatty plaques blocking the coronary arteries.
An attack of unstable angina is an emergency and you should seek immediate medical treatment. If left untreated, unstable angina can lead to heart attack, heart failure, or arrhythmias (irregular heart rhythms). These can be life-threatening conditions.
The ECG in unstable angina may show hyperacute T-wave, flattening of the T-waves, inverted T-waves, and ST depression. ST elevations indicate STEMI, and these patients should be treated with percutaneous coronary intervention or thrombolytics while they wait on the availability of a catheterization lab.