I have recently been treated for suspected angina and awaiting CT Angiogram diagnosis. From getting symptoms when walking, I now get regular attacks whilst sitting relaxing. I’m on Bisoprolol, aspirin and GTN spray. Having fainted with early use of GTN I’m nervous about using it. I don’t get pain in my chest but heaviness. I start by feeling slightly nauseous, heaviness and am aware of my faster heartbeats. Recently I get a numb or tingly feeling in my left arm. My question is when do I take the GTN? One spray? I’ve had various replies, one was ‘don’t take unless you feel pain.’ I try and breathe through the episode but I find it all quite scary as does my husband watching me!
I look forward to any helpful hints to get me to my scan. Thx.
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Nanatothree
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Hello Nanatothree, I felt exactly the same way about the sprays. I am two months on from a shock major event heart attack and still worry about using my spray. It gives me a whacking headache after I use it and the doctors tell me it drops blood pressure, with the result I feel quite unwell as I have low blood pressure already. However, I have had to brave it out with the spray as each time I call an ambulance (four times since heart attack) the ambulance staff have had me spray and sat with me while I waited for the effects to kick in. I have found it takes me 10-15 minutes to feel the real benefit but if I am feeling pain after 5 minutes I spray again. Inhaling it by mistake is truly disgusting and makes it 10 times worse - I breath in before I spray then exhale through my nose. In the two months I have realised I have to sit and totally relax, feet up, imagine walking in fields, get someone nearby to talk to me to keep my mind off what is happening. I last sprayed two days ago. I still feel the fear too, I have to keep thinking to myself, it can't do any harm and may just save me from another terrible event. Get hubby to talk to you about something to take your mind away from what is happening and give it time. I'm no expert, actually new at this as you can tell.
Thank you for taking time to reply to me. I have been reassured by this forum reading all the stories etc. I am now using the spray more confidently and earlier than before and today is the first day I’ve not had to use it...yet!
Unlike a lot of the replies and stories I seem to be fortunate in not getting a headache reaction, so I am thankful about that.
I am getting my angiogram next week, so should know soon what’s going on.
try taking spray while lying down. this prevents any falls due to reduce in blood pressure. the headaches do go away after a few weeks usually. hang in there. iv through it too. i now take anti anginal tablets to stop me having to use the spray as i also have low blood pressure.hope this helps❤️shiona
Thank you for your input, much appreciated. Luckily I don’t get the headaches you all talk about so I’m thankful for that.
I'm new to it as well. I'm waiting for my Angiogram. I saw my GP about chest pain in August that had been steadily getting worse and was on referral. But everything delayed due to covid. I ended up in A&E on 24th and 27th December. Blood tests on 24th initially indicated a heart attack and I was given tablets and injections - 6 hours later a doctor said my Troponin levels had only gone up by 1 so it wasn't a heart attack and gave me a prescription for Omeprazole to rule out gastric issues and sent me home. Why I didn't question this more I don't know. But I was on my own and in shock.
Two days later I was back in again, same blood tests and this time told it's Angina. I have the GTN spray, I'm lucky as im ok using it. Think it was such a relief tbh as it worked and I could walk my dog without having to stop every 5 mins. But I'm talking to the docs today as I'm struggling at night. I'm being woken up by discomfort - which often feels like indigestion so I'm taking Rennie at first and trying to breathe through it. But after a few really bad nights its becoming obvious that the GTN is needed and the sooner I take it the better. Last night I tried a pre-emptive spray before I went to bed. I managed until 4.30am. So I'm asking my GP if there's a long acting tablet version for night. Pretty sure I read somewhere there is.
Mentally the not knowing what's going underneath is the bit that's really starting to bother me. Plus not knowing how long it'll be before I get the Angiogram to find out. I feel very anxious, which isn't helpful, but then I'm very tired at the mo so it's getting the better of me. So I need to sort that out if I can.
I also had “stomach-related” issues in my early days of diagnosis and really went for an angiogram to prove it wasn’t heart related - but it was - that was a big surprise!
I found this helped - try not to eat your evening meal close to bedtime, have a couple of spoons of gaviscon before bed, sleep sitting up - lots of pillows behind you and two or three under your knees. So you are giving your system time to deal with food early, you are putting a barrier layer in your stomach and you’re reducing the risk of acid/reflux type feelings. Drinking plenty of water to dilute the acid contents of your stomach can help too!
Once you get your diagnosis they’ll be able to give you more appropriate drugs which will help a lot.
I had similar symptoms and, whilst waiting for diagnosis etc, was very nervous and quite certain I wouldn’t use the spray until/unless I had pain - and made sure I didn’t exert myself enough to bring it on.
However - very late in the day - when I spoke to the surgeon who was going to do my bypass - I found out that it was recommended to use the spray before you do the exertion! Who knew? It was a bit late in my story, but I did use it this way and found It worked well. Perhaps I was lucky, I would feel I’d “run out of steam” rather than pain.
Be prepared for a long wait and talk to the cardio nurse at the hospital if you can for some help with your drugs
You’ll eventually get your Angiogram done, then a decision about what to do next - stents or bypass. And don’t panic if it’s a bypass the reward of being symptom free afterwards is well worth the inconvenience!
Thank you for taking time to reply to me. I have been reassured by this forum reading all the stories etc. I am now using the spray more confidently and earlier than before and today is the first day I’ve not had to use it...yet!
Unlike a lot of the replies and stories I seem to be fortunate in not getting a headache reaction, so I am thankful about that.
I am getting my angiogram next week, so should know soon what’s going on.
I'm in a similar position, feeling clueless on how to deal with symptoms - diagnosed recently with moderate LAD angina - discharged from the angiogram with no information, GP still trying to get bisoprolol dose right - while I think I'm supposed to exercise more I'm feeling scared and still forgetting to take spray with me. (Glad to read others find the taste disgusting.)
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