What Causes Left Sided Chest Pain In An Elderly Person?

Posted on Fri, 12 May 2017

Question: Lots of caffeine last couple of weeks. Early this morning while getting ready I had a terrible pain on left side. I am a 67 yr. old woman. What could it be?

Answered by Dr. Sunil (1 hour later)

Brief Answer:
can be a presentation of angina.

Detailed Answer:
Hi
Thanks for choosing HealthcareMagic for your query.
Most likely the sensation you are trying to explain is angina(heart pain).Classical angina is associated with exertion and relieves on resting.Early morning onset of pain is also characterstic of angina.
I would strongly recommend you to go for few baseline tests of cardiology like
2 d echo- wall motion of heart will be appreciated.In case there is any ischemia regional wall motion abnormality will be seen.
Stress test- You are made to run on a treadmill and ecg recordings will be taken.Any ST-T change is suggestive of ischemia or coronary artery disease.

Combined together 2d echo and treadmill test are more then 80% sensitive to rule out coronary artery disease.

I would suggest you to go for these two baseline tests of cardiology initially before giving you any further opinion.
Please answer the following questions-
Do you feel that pain relieves on resting?
Do this pain has any relation to food intake?
Any episode of breathlessness or palpitation>?
Regards

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Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Kampana