prinzmetals angina
Posted , 96 users are following.
I have had prinzmetal's angina for over 7 years. Information about prinzmetal's says that pain occurs at night while in bed. Well not in my case. I get angina pain in the day time as well at night. Does anyone out there get pain in the day as I do ? I get pain at anytime, when it is cold or when I feel stressed and sometimes activity brings it on. I am taking a lot of medication for it , can't be without the nitro spray. Am having a lot of bad days lately hope to have a few good days soon.
Because prinzmetals is rare I feel a bit lonely having it , even though there are people who have the usual angina. It would be good to talk to somebody who prinzmetals.
14 likes, 699 replies
Suziemo Guest
Posted
Hi think this is what I get on and off.
It comes on as a crushing pain on my middle to slight left hand side and is a pain that goes from the front of my chest to the back. Spreading around just under my breasts where my bra goes, on many occasions I have ripped my bra off ,but it doesn't make any difference at all.
it comes in waves that build up and then die down and I get a strange jaw / back teeth pain as well. They used to always co e in the middle of the night and wake me up but just recently they have been coming in the morning ,always when I am at rest . They usually last about 20-30 minutes and I tend to get a few a month then non for several months then a few within a week again.
No pain in my arms ,sweating or sickness feeling.
Does this sound like prinzmetal angina ??
samuels Suziemo
Posted
Yes it does, even though it is very painful and uncomfortable it sounds like you are getting only mild doses. I would suggest seeing your doctor about this and get a referral to a cardiologist. For some it can be hard to diagnose and they will run you around in circles with other theories.
Suziemo samuels
Posted
Hi
sometimes it's definately more painful than others. I have resently had a hip op and I am still taking quite a bit of medication so think that makes it a little less painful.
Prior to the op it was very painful to the point I thought it might be a heart attack .
Brodie33 Suziemo
Posted
joan91778 Guest
Posted
joan91778 Guest
Posted
dina43770 Guest
Posted
samuels dina43770
Posted
Hi,
Can I ask what medication they are talking about, It wouldn't be PCS K9 Inhibitor would it ? It's used for cholesterol and they also believe it could aid in spasms.It's an injectable drug and very expensive.
rich5022 Guest
Posted
Hello, I suffer from this myself and I've been taking calcium channel blockers. They work really well
samuels rich5022
Posted
Hi,
Glad hear the calcium channel blockers work really well for you. I don't know the percentage rate but they don't always work for all PA sufferers, sure they start off working great, the calcium channel blockers but I have had cardiologists and doctors tell me our body can become tolerant to all the angina medication. The ones I had found extremely helpful were these 2 calcium channel blockers, Cardizem (highest dose allowable by a GP) and the other one which I think worked better was Perhexiline (Pexsig) both still work to a degree but not as well as they use to.
dina43770 samuels
Posted
diana88467 dina43770
Posted
I have been taking emdur 60 mg in the morning and Ranexa a.m. and p.m. 1000 mg and lisinopril and a small dose of Atenolol after the majors event of constant PA pain spasms and living on Nitro some times 9 times a day finally started calming down with anxiety medicine Klonopin it is a terrible thing to have and very scary it's shocks me that so many people have this disease and that takes so much more medicine than I do and it makes me happy to see they are still surviving it gives me hope I am so thankful for this forum and I pray that all of you live long and satisfied lives and have happiness every day ?
dina43770 diana88467
Posted
Rexana seems to be a good medicine. Since i took my spasms are veryvrare given that i have changed my entire lifestyle. What wotked for me is that i stopped anything that might cause me stress even if it is a tv show or news or even scary movies or seeing an unpresent person. I also found taking a nap during the day helps ease the spasm more and makes me survive the day with less spasm occurances. Lately i also benefited a lot from doing low intensity yoga. One last tip is not to eat heavy meals. Hope thos helps. And yes thank god for this forum it gave me hope in life.
rich5022 Guest
Posted
Hello, are you positive it's prinzmetal? I've had two unfortunate experiences that resulted in my heart muscle producing troponin levels so high the event was diagnosed as an m.i.
Ever since I had my first one on January 16 2013 they put me on beta blockers and then when I went to a different cardiologist he suspected spasms and switched me to a calcium channel blocker. Diltiazem (180 mg)
I experienced both of these episodes while at rest. Both were early in the morning between 5 & 6 am. They told me I'm lucky to be alive. My cardiologist tells me this is a rare syndrome, and only one other patient out of 150 patients he sees on a weekly basis has this condition besides myself. I'm thankful that he diagnosed me early on with this because the hospital doctors didn't have a clue.
This is real because I thought I could be off the CCB's and had gotten approved to do so since I was approaching 4 years without any events (aside from intermittent events of slight discomfort ), well I was so f*****g wrong. After 6 months or so (not all that time was approved) I had another m.i. , but only this time it was worse with more pain. I felt I wanted to be off any and all medication and told my doctor that I'd been off the meds and asked if I could do so with his approval and he agreed. Well that deco almost cost me my life. I still go to him and think he's a good doctor. I can't hold it against him since I felt he was the only one from the very beginning to tell me what the deal was. Before he took me off the medication officially he made me take another stress test which I passed with flying colors.
This is my story and I would like to share with others suffering from the same affliction.
dina43770 rich5022
Posted
Hi rich what is mi?i was always wondering what will happen if i stopp3d my medicine. What if i didn't take the nitro also what will happen?
samuels dina43770
Posted
Hi dina,
MI = Myocardial Infarction, laymans term a heart attack. If you stopped taking your spray your angina would just last longer, but it would not be advisable to stop taking it, some plaque build up may of dislodged and actually reducing the blood flow to your heart more than usual during your angina attack, you just never know, basically playing around with your life there, little bit different if you had only the prinzmetal angina as you know what it is and the doctors / cardioligists say it will not kill us, these coronary artery spasms just cause lots of moderate to severe pain that resembles an angina attack. I've had a few NSTEMI's from this condition and some doctors have changed their tune in saying prinzmetal angina doesn't cause heart attacks.
Sorry I forgot to explain NSTEMI. NSTEMI = mild heart attack generally not picked up by an ECG only via a troponin blood test. STEMI = serious heart attack always shows on ECG and troponins will be sky high.