Coronary Stenting for Ischaemic Heart Disease

We're here today to talk about the symptoms of coronary artery disease. Of course it may be very straightforward in that you develop that classic chest tightness which goes into your left arm, into your neck, it makes you feel a bit breathless, it comes on on inversion. Sometimes it's not quite as straightforward as that, and people's description of pain can vary dramatically. In fact, a lot of patients tell me they never have a pain, it's a heaviness, it's a tightness. So what I would suggest is that if you have symptoms in the upper part of your chest, if you have breathlessness on exertion, then you would consider whether this might be angina. So what is angina? It's a lack of blood supply to the heart so that when you push it, then the heart is feeling the strain and that strain can manifest as the symptoms of angina, breathlessness, chest discomfort, often not described as pain, you might even get slightly nauseated with it, you may just feel tired. If you're diabetic then the symptoms are often more vague and it's well known that if English is not your first language then the description that an English-speaking doctor takes from you may not be quite as accurate. In fact your presentation may be slightly atypical and And actually the same goes for a lot of ladies. Their description of pain is very different from what a man might describe as pain. I found that I was getting out of breath very easily, and it happened literally overnight. It didn't happen over a period of time. Went to see my GP, and within days, I was having the procedure done. Didn't know too much about the procedure. Didn't tell anyone about the procedure. I'm a full-time carer, so I didn't want to worry my husband. My son was having an exam, so I didn't have him. So I kind of just shrugged it off and said, I'm just having something done, you know. Tried to look up what I could on the internet. I wasn't fazed by it at all. The only bit I was fazed about was the actual thing going into my hand. and I was given the option for sedation, which I went for, but the sedation didn't work, and I kept telling them they need to give me more sedation. It wasn't a pleasant experience, and I went to the sedation because I know how my body reacts when I get into a panic mode. It doesn't stop shaking, and I can't stop it, and they're telling me, stop shaking. I can't stop shaking, you know? you need to give me more sedation and eventually I was a bit annoyed because they didn't and then eventually they had to because they were in there doing the work and my whole body was going into kind of spasms and then afterwards I kind of rested slept quite well for about an hour or so They kept me in for a good couple of hours after the procedure and basically just let me go home after that and I haven't had a problem since, such was.