Last week I had squeezing chest pain when walking after my heart rate shot up to 140bpm. I didn't feel dizzy or have much shortness of breath and it went away after using GTN spray.
Since the day after that, every time I go for a walk I'm getting dizzy to the point of needing to stop walking. (Except yesterday morning, I felt great yesterday morning!)
I'm not getting chest pain or shortness of breath but I am getting dizzy enough that if I don't stop walking it makes me nauseous.
I'm so fed up of going to the GP since my HA & stents 6 months ago. It's been a rollercoaster of A&E, cardiologist & GP visits with one thing after another and I have a CT angio next week, followed by a stress MRI some weeks after.
I suppose I'm just here to vent, I know there's not much of anything to be said. My family is pressuring me to speak to the GP about it tomorrow, as today was a particularly nasty dizzy spell, so I will but I am SO fed up with this!
Should I use my GTN spray for dizzyness but when there's no chest pain or is it just for chest pain?
Something to ask the doc.
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bee_bear
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Sounds like your going through a rough recovery and I can't offer any advice from experience other than keep strong, you've been through only a few can understand and whilst it's frustrating, unsettling , hopefully the experts will find the route cause to what's going on with you.
When I asked about GTN spray I was told to use it for chest pain.
Hi, sorry to hear about the dizzyness. You do need to talk to your GP, at the very least, to find out what's causing it. I can totally empathise with your frustration. There have been times over the last year when I've felt the same. I had terrible problems with dizzyness when I was put on a relatively high isosorbide mnf dose and nicorandil although, in fairness, I was warned about that. Things improved when those meds were stopped after a 2nd angiogram. It could be meds related, many of the ones we are often given in our cocktail of meds list dizzyness in the side effects but it could be something else. I woke up with bad vertigo last week and a trip to the GP resulted in antibiotics for a UTI plus tablets to help stop things spinning round. Also discovered I had a lot of impacted earwax for which I was told to use olive oil to soften. Things are much better a week on although I may still go and get the wax removed at some point.
I found that my bisoprolol was making me shaved out and dizzy during certain parts of the day . Had it reduced from 3.75 to 2.5mg . Now on 1.25 and half a tablet of 1.25mg of rampiril ( plus clopidogrel , artovastatin aspirin) . Had Nstemi heart attack snd 4x CABG in July . No issues with dizziness now .
I would suggest you read the leaflet that comes with your medication. You might find that one specifically mentions dizziness and it might be possible to change it, or take it at a different time of day.
Also worth mentioning to your pharmacist as to whether the cocktail you are taking might interact and cause dizziness.
Failing that a call to the GP or 111 seems desirable.
just a thought. Have you got a blood pressure machine at home? Maybe get one, if you haven’t, and take your blood pressure each day at roughly the same time after resting for ten minutes. Then present your doc with the readings. The reason I say this is that you have a bp reading of 140 after exercise. Your blood pressure should indeed be up in order to get you going. So I’m thinking maybe you are being over-medicated??? Go to Blood Pressure UK for more information
I had dizzy spells for months after I had a stent inserted in July last year. They were set off by exercise and emotional stress. It calmed down in November and I was about to return to work when I crashed my bike. I am just about over the bike crash and about to return to work.
Initially my heart rate increased too. That stopped but my blood pressure was going up and down rapidly causing me to feel faint. I have a home meter and was measuring it every hour at one point and could see it correlated with feeling faint.
At one point I was practically housebound. I am however over it now.
One GP said it can take 3 - 6 months to get over a stent being inserted and I think he was right in my case.
I had a 24 hour blood pressure monitor on recently and it showed I was fine but I was not a few months before that. The other thing they were going to investigate is atrial fibrillation, irregular heart beats. Cardiology can give you a 24 hour monitor to wear to check for this or your GP might be able to get ECG's done when you have symptoms if you can get to the surgery while it is still happening.
I also had a lot of support from both the cardiac nurses and cardiac rehab nurses who wrote to my GP when I had problems which hurried things along in terms of getting tests and as someone else said it could be one of the drugs you are on so that is worth discussing with your GP too.
Check the side effects of the medication you are on. Do you check your BP and heart rate when you have these dizzy spells? I am having similar but it's because my heart rate is dropping to 32 bpm and showing arrhythmias
I suffer from dizziness when walking, absolutely fine when attending cardiac rehab, also get vertigo from time to time for years.
I think 3 of my meds can cause dizziness , ramipril, atorvastatin and bisoprolol, my bp is a bit low. I return to work in a couple of weeks so will then monitor my BP and if it’s normal the doctor will review my meds at that point.
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