Angina and pulse rate

Question

If you have angina, does the pulse rate change? Increase, decrease or stay the same? Yesterday I had chest pain: front, back and up the neck. Lasted about 20 minutes. Pulse was steady but decreased to upper fifties. I'm used to PSVT where it pops up to at least 150 or more. Under amazing stress right now so not sure if it was stomach or heart. Whatever. . .  it's over now. But was more curious about the pulse rate.

ireneo · Answer

Thanks guys. That was helpful. So I'm not going to give it another thought then. Just stress.

ed34 · Answer

I have what they call stable angina and I'm not sure if everyone experiences the same things. In order to get angina, I have to exert myself, such as walking up stairs or a hill. My threshold for angina is 90 beats per minute but some people are more or less. As soon as my HR goes above 90 through exertion, there is immediate chest discomfort. Standing still causes a very quick recovery, usually within 20-30 seconds as the heart slows down. The strange thing is, if I just stand up having sat down for a while, my heart jumps to around 90-100 bpm for about a minute but I feel no discomfort. So my heart rate doesn't really change because of the angina, which is a good thing because I would have no way of controlling it if my heart went even faster. I rely on my heart slowing down for relief.

kenkeith · Answer

Angina almost always indicates a low cardiac output and compensation (faster heart rate, respiration increase, etc.) to increase the heart oxygen demand that is deficit with ischemia (blocked vessels), and other conditions that can compromise coronary blood flow (e.g., spasm and/or thrombosis of a coronary artery, etc.) and conditions that reduce oxygen availability and/or increase myocardial workload and oxygen demands (e.g., anemia, smoking, exercise, heavy meals, increased altitude, exposure to cold, stress) may precipitate or increase the frequency of angina attacks by widening the gap between oxygen needs and availability.