Recovery after heart attack and stents. Pain continues some 8months later.
Heart attack May 19, 2 stents fitted.... - British Heart Fou...
Heart attack May 19, 2 stents fitted. Still having chest, elbow, jaw pain. A&E: ECG, X-ray and Troponin indicate all fine. what's going on?
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Stephen620808
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MichaelJHHeart Star
Hello Stephen and welcome to the forum! Thank you for putting plenty of detail in your profile as this helps. Many leave it blank and ask a vague question. The one thing that springs to mind was the ECG a resting or exercise one. With four arteries blocked between 70% and 85% (the LAD) my resting ECG was "unexceptional". If yours was not an exercise ECG I would ask for one as any problems will show up in a few minutes. Let us know how it goes.
Thanks for the response Michael. I’ve had both resting ECG at A&E and stress one on treadmill with cardiologist.
I’m beginning to wonder if it’s Micro cardiovascular angina or if I’m clutching at straws in desperate need of an answer.
MilkfairyHeart Star
Hi Stephen
Microvascular and vasospastic angina are causes of chest pain due to ischaemia non obstructed coronary arteries
INOCA
Both MVA and vasospastic angina are poorly understood and recognised and often overlooked.
Your Cardiologist may have very little knowledge of the conditions.
I had a very specialised angiogram to diagnose my coronary vasospastic angina. I have vasospasms in my small vessels - microvascular angina and large vessels- coronary artery spasms.
All my other tests are normal and I was originally told I couldn't have cardiac chestpain because my coronary arteries are unobstructed.
I suggest you ask your Cardiologist is he/ she is aware of Prof Colin Berry's and Prof Divaka Perera's research into INOCA.
If not ask them to read the research and make contact with either Profs for ongoing advice.
One of the named Prof's is my specialist.
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...
heart.bmj.com/content/104/4...
ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161...
Do you know your troponin levels?
You can with MVA or VSA have slightly raised levels with subtle ECG changes.
The chest pain associated with MVA and VSA is well known to be more severe and lasts much longer than other types of angina.
Thanks for your input.
My last troponin levels at A&E on Thursday last week were 1 at 15:30 and 1 at 18:45.
Do you know what units ?
Was it ng/L ?
Sorry don’t know, coming to this as a novice. A&E doctor said anything under 39 was low and patients scoring a 12 would be sent home and I scored 1 which was new to her.
Now awaiting respiratory and gastrointestinal appointments.
Troponin levels usually rise when the heart muscle is damaged.
However it can rise for other reasons such as infection, trauma, kidney disease, a clot forming, age, after extreme exercise.
Each hospital has slightly different levels. It is not fool proof it is part of several signs usually present to show the heart muscle has been bruised or damaged.
Women tend to have lower levels than men.
Recent research by Prof Nick Mills suggests a Troponin level below 5ng/L usually indicates all is well.
It is important that other reasons for your pain is excluded. So having tests to make sure the cause of your pain isn't gastric or lung problems is sensible
If in doubt you should always go to A&E you are not wasting people's time.
I keep a copies of my ECGs so the staff can spot any changes when I go into hospital.
It can be very stressful not knowing what is causing your pain which just makes your pain worse!
I suggest you try and adopt some strategies to manage this. Perhaps talk to your GP ?
I have to be very careful managing my stress I find Tai Chi, yoga and meditation helps me keep calm.
I hope you get the answers you need soon and feel more at ease.
The forum is a great place everyone has had a different journey but we all support each other the best we can.
Thank you. I have copies of ECG too. Hopefully the chest and stomach test will come back fine and cardiologist can have another review. I’m sure they’ll find something eventually, just a process of elimination. In the meantime, thanks for your thoughts.
hi Stephen
Im surprised they haven't done CT scan as that's much better for showing things than x-ray. I had similar to you last may and echocardiogram a few months after stent surgery they then ran CT and found my continued symptoms are caused by an enlarged Aortic Artery (Anyerism). Might be something to consider? It should typically be 3cm and is considered a risk from about 5cm. Managing the symptoms is same kind of meds for your heart treatments and scans every 6 months - year to monitor its size.
My apologies, I should have said I’ve had a CT scan too.
Cardiologist says everything is fine, but doesn’t know why I’m getting pain, hence referral to respiratory and gastrointestinal clinics.
Hi Stephen my hubby had the same as you a heart attack 2 years ago 3 stents fitted has been to a & e and sent home with the same symptoms and it turns out his trapping levels didn’t show either and has just had a quadruple bypass no one would listen to us and we were so frustrated it was only when he got his angiogram and it showed things were critical the surgeon wouldn’t let him leave the hospital till the op was done we are now 7 weeks post op and the difference is amazing.
Hi Stephen
I had 4x stents fitted in 2017 kept having pains in chest for over a year so another angioplasty in March 2019 found stent kinked in lad so they put another stent inside the collapsed one and since then I've had nothing but pain and sickness which doctors can't find out what's wrong still as tests come back normal but symptoms only started in March as I write this I'm in hospital again.
Not so good, if you get a satisfactory conclusion, let me know. In the meantime, hope you start to feel better soon.
It was very poor professionalism at my angioplasty alarms going off the person doing the angioplasty left the lab while alarm was ringing. Wasn't given anything to relax me and wasn't even told what was happening during the procedure 😣. So my bad symptoms started the day after this was done and this was done at a so called top hospital. Word of advice if you have to have your stents checked make sure they give you something to relax. If they can ever find out what's been going on at my end I will post it.
Hope they can sort you out soon 👍
