Think Outside The Box

[MichaelJH]

There is a tendancy for hearties to think that every symptom is related to their heart disease or medication. Heart disease does not preclude other illnesses or medical conditions. So if something is causing worry check it out with your GP or ring 111. This also applies to worries about your heart but it is 999 in the event of severe chest pain, that may spread to arm/jaw. The same if you have angina and it had not shifted after two goes with GTN spray!

[Heythrop51]

As a newbie I have noticed this on the forum. Quite puzzling to me.

[jerry12953]

Hope you don't mind me saying that not everyone wuith angina has their symptoms relieved by GTN. I'm one of them........

[WardijaWardija in reply to jerry12953]

Hi Jerry. I'm really glad you posted about the GTN spray.

I too have angina and have recently started using the spray, exactly to the instructions - it does absolutely NOTHING to relieve my angina either !! I'm also on Relosorb Isosorbide XL 60mgs daily, that also is not working for me.

Normally I would just sit down for 10 minutes and it passes. If I were to adopt the 999 protocol, I'd be in and out of hospital 2-3 times a day, every flipping day 🙄🙄🙄 I'm sure A&E would love me! Obviously, if the attack continued, longer than my "normal" - I would call for an ambulance.

I'm wondering if I am resistant to Nitrates?

Fortunately I managed to actually speak with my Cardiologist today and wants to see me this coming Friday, which I'm so appreciative of as my next scheduled appointment with Cardiology is not until next April.

How do you manage your angina? If you don't mind me asking . . .

I'll report back to the forum with my findings after Friday.

Take care ☺

[jerry12953 in reply to WardijaWardija]

Re managing my angina: I think I have a fairly mild case of angina (Fingers crossed). Over the last c3 years i've had probably four episodes which were quite severe and/or frightened me.; but on the whole it only happens when I walk uphill and I know it will pass quite quickly (within a few minutes) when I get to the top! I've had various scans and tests which have shown only minor blockages in my arteries - not enough to cause any symptoms according to the drs. So it has been tentatively diagnosed as microvascular angina.

I was originally prescribed bisoprolol which caused me a lot of dizziness, so I stopped taking it. Now I'm on amlidipine which after six weeks does seem to be relieving the symptoms. Unless of course it is improving of its own accord coincidentally with the medication . So I plan to test this by stopping the amlidipine for a while to see what happens! (Also taking aspirin and 20 mg statin)

I do believe that the medical profession will try things just to see if they work. Some seem to be more gung-ho about prescribing medication than others. That's not a criticism but in my opinion the state of their knowledge is still relatively limited and we shouldn't always take what they say as absolutely gospel.

Good to hear that you've get an appointment at such short notice - maybe a cancellation? I'm sure we'd all be interested to hear what the result of the consultation was. Good luck.

[Milkfairy Heart Star in reply to jerry12953]

Hi jerry12953

Microvascular angina typically causes prolonged frequent severe episodes of debilitating chest pain.

Vasospastic angina aka coronary artery spasms the same but the pain is mostly at rest.

I don't use GTN spray as it works briefly it feels as though my head is going to explode and then I get hit by even worse rebound pain as my blood vessels constrict even more!

This is just me and typical of those of us with microvascular and/ or vasospastic angina.

GTN is very useful and helps most people with obstructive coronary artery disease .

A call to 111 or 999 is required if you have ongoing chest pain after using the spray 2 or 3 times.

[WardijaWardija in reply to jerry12953]

Thanks for your reply and for sharing your experiences.

I think the reason I'm being seen so soon, by my Cardiologist, is down to the fact that neither the isosorbide or the GTN spray is preventing/relieving my ever increasing angina attacks. I did ask him if it was possible that some patients could just be resistant to the GTN spray? He replied that he wasn't aware of this being the case - but did say that the spray was not useful for patients with US, unstable angina. Luckily mine is stable, at least for now 🙄 . . .

I will advise the forum as to Fridays outcome.

Take care and go easy on those hills !