Heart and Bowel

[Karma124]

Hello,

I am a diabetic and I am on medication for both diabetes and blood pressure.  I am female and 47 years old.  I began to have pain under my left shoulder and between, in my neck up to my jaw, chest left side and below left breast.  My blood pressure has reached 160+/as high as 107 when I have other symptoms.  Sometimes it feels like I can not take a deep breath.  These symptoms do not last.  My main question however is that now I seem to have the urge to have a bowel movement but unable to proceed.  I will end up going to the bathroom several times becasuse of the uncomfortable urge before and after.  I do not believe it is constipation because when I am able to have a bowel movement, it is normal.  I have been impacted several times since my first pregnancy 11 years ago but not for a while now.  Is the urge to have a bowel movement related to heart?  Is it a symptom that there is something wrong with my heart?

I have not consulted my family physician yet.  A did not connect the two until a member of my family said it might be related.

Thank you for your help!
Karma

[AmySabato]

I see what you are saying, but like in my case, my doctor says all is normal, but if you have a patient that presents themselves symptomatic, should you not continue to run tests specific to those symptoms that could come up with an answer, or would there just be too many tests and this is not be figured out unless the person passes and they do an autopsy? Thanks in advance.

[Karma124]

Thank you!  Thank you to jrbon too.  I never noticed eating to trigger my other problems.  I will have to pay closer attention.  I thank you for your advice and concern and suggestions.

[ed34]

I am not saying this is the reason in your case, but yes bowel movement can trigger angina. In 2006 I was getting chest pains/throat discomfort and jaw ache after eating any amount of food. I was also a very regular guy, opening my bowels every morning. As soon as I woke up and started to walk around, my angina was quite strong, until I emptied my bowels. It was like instant relief from the symptoms. That being said, in January 2007 I was diagnosed as having some kind of stomach disorder and was booked to have a camera passed down my throat. However, in Feb 2007, two days before the appointment, I started to have attacks of MI. It can be quite a difficult thing to distinguish between digestive and heart issues, which is why this is the area so many mis-diagnosis' are made. If I was to go through this again, I would probably ask for a nitro spray or something, so when the symptoms start, I could have a quick spray under the tongue and see if the problem goes away. I don't blame the Doctors in my case, my EKG was normal, my echo was normal and blood tests were all normal. They can only go by results.
Do you also get the symptoms after eating? because this is more common.

[jrbon]

If your pain in the chess it is constant, please go to ER... it can be a serious cardiac problem.

If it is intermittent, look for a cardiologist, it might be angina.

I am not aware of bowel problems to be a symptom of a heart problem but, some of the medicaments for high BP can have this as a side effect.

Jesus