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Calcium Channel Blockers


E246

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hi,

Can anyone help - it's me with the cheat pain again!

I have been taking calcuim channel blockers since my last consultation 4 weeks ago. They made an amazing difference to the chest pain and I have been functioning almost normally but I still can not walk far without chest pain.

Even when my HR has only risen to 80's-90's - standing or walking for long can give me dragging chest pain.

But these tablets have made me feel much better in myself.

However over the last week I have started to have the old symptoms of generalized chest pain after walking or standing that lasts for hours.

So I have been resting all day (again) and it still has not gone.

At work I have a new contract starting on monday and I thought i was coming through the other end of this and suddenly I feel back to square one.

I felt at the point that I knew what i could do - this now just feels haphazard and i have no idea what has brought it back on after 3 weeks of improvement. I don't know if i will feel well tomorrow.

There has been no actual diagnosis of anything wrong with my heart so why this medication works i do not quite understand.

My next app with the consultant is on monday and i think maybe she will increase the dose of Channel blockers but I really want to know why they are working.

I know it's my heart that is hurting - not my stomach - not my muscles- as it happens after exertion. It's just I do not understand then why it does not go with rest. And there seems to be no interest in the cause of it.

I have been told a stress test will make me feel to ill and i am waiting for an echo but i have had 2 already over the last 5 years. i wrote an earlier post about cardiac syndrome x that causes pain because of constriction in the smaller capillaries around the heart - this is a more female type of heart condition. I don't know.

So has anyone found them Calcium Channel Blockers effective in the long term?

Are they easy to come of? I am on Dilzen 120gm

I have written a few posts about chest pain - so forgive me if I am repeating myself - it's just that the doctors do not seem to understand it and it has pinned me to the settee again.

Thanks

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Hi,

I haven't been posting much lately, but I am someone whose symptoms have included chest pain. I had a really hard time getting that part of the problem treated and addressed, as it is not "textbook." I even got an angiogram (normal) a couple years ago.

I take midodrine, florinef, and norvasc, in addition to wearing compression, a neck brace for cranial-cervical instability that is probably the cause for my ans issues. I have found that whatever worsens POTS can provoke chest pain. The best theory anyone has proposed is that my blood vessels freak out when I'm having ans symptoms and overconstrict, causing vasospasms. The amlodipine helps with the spasms. But getting the dosage right was tricky-- I could only tolerate 2.5 mgs. 5 made things worse. FLorinef really helped, as it boosts my blood volume enough that I don't begin the chest pain spiral so quickly.

I also did cardiac rehab a couple years ago. I was dropping rather than raising bp when exerting, and very gradual, closely monitored increases in exertion helped to correct this. I also found that I needed to walk on an incline to increase blood return.

But it was hard to find a doc who would treat dysautonomia AND the chest pain. Most docs, upon discovering I don't have regular heart disease, would tell me it was nothing. Vasospasms CAN be dangerous, though. Some docs wanted to do a repeat angiogram to see if they could chemically provoke spasms. This seemed really invasive. I found a doctor who was willing to just try the ccb and see if it helped. And indeed it did.

For now, things have been relatively stable for two years. The good news is I have only been to the ER for chest pain once in those two years, when initially it seemed constant. I can still get in trouble if I don't stay properly hydrated, stand too long, or am around my period. But have been able to manage.

Good luck. You need doctors willing to think outside the box. There are a handful of us here who get chest pain. IT should not be assumed to be benign, just because you are relatively young and female. But you need someone who will treat it as part of the dysautonomia. I think of it as my body's last ditch effort to hold on to upper body circulation by over constricting. If I can keep better blood flow in my thorax, then I don't then over constrict-- at least in my case...

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Thanks for the replies. I have found it really reassuring.

Saw the doctor today. She had talked to the cardiologist and had decided that a stress test was probably not possible and to medically induce stress was to risky - so- she suggested i see a psychologist to manage the pain!!!!!

I am furious. I refused and said that just the fact that i was given indigestion tablets to try last time as part of a systematic approach to stop the pain shows that they don't accept that it is in my chest.

I am (or was 3 months ago) a strong swimmer so i do not think there is something wrong with my heart fundamentally but you are right that the pots has caused the chronic chest pain.

In the past I went to the hospital quite a few times with chest pain and they did tests and found nothing. However at the time the pots was very intermittent and would go with rest so once i was in hospital it would ease off. At that time i still did not know what the problem was.

So now they just keep saying they have done all the tests.

Thanks again your responses have helped me feel like i am not going mad or being unreasonable.

The upshot is that they want me to increase the calcium channel blocker and see if that works otherwise to go on to the one beginning with m? Mildodene? (sp)

I may put up a post and see if anyone else has had a psychologist for pain management suggested or is this just very british.

Cheers

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Emma,

Sometimes enzymes do help with pain. They are being used more and more for that. And yes, they all want to say it's in our heads - so you're not alone. It's in our heads, our hearts, our blood vessels, our muscles etc. etc. Why do they try to seperate one part of our bodies - it's all connected. Duh!!!!!

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