Dr. Valle is a specialist in adult cardiology in Valencia. He explains that, when faced with chest pain, it is important to see a specialist because it can become complicated and lead to other pathologies.
Chest pain is the most frequent cause of admission to the emergency department for fear of suffering a myocardial infarction. However, two out of every three patients who present with this complaint do not have heart disease. Chest pain of non-cardiac origin, as this ailment is called, affects a high percentage of the population. Half of them have gastroesophageal reflux and the other half suffer from anxiety crises, anxiety, musculoskeletal problems or infectious processes.
It is true that chest pain, especially if it is oppressive and radiates to the neck, jaw or arm, may indicate the onset of a process of high severity and mortality such as myocardial infarction or aortic syndrome. This type of pain is usually of high intensity, accompanied by sweating and general malaise and lasts for more than 20 or 30 minutes.
When to go to the specialist
It is necessary to go urgently in episodes of oppressive radiating chest pain, with vegetative cortex (sweating, nausea, etc.) that lasts more than 20 or 30 minutes and generates general malaise. All patients who present pain or dyspnea (shortness of breath) with physical effort, especially if previously (weeks or days before) they did not present pain or dyspnea, come to our offices on a scheduled basis. Often these are episodes of angina pectoris, which the cardiologist evaluates and decides on the therapeutic management to follow, which can range from medical treatment to non-invasive assessment of the coronary circulation (by means of stress or anatomical tests such as a coronary CT scan) to invasive assessment by means of coronary angiography.
When faced with sudden, intense and severe chest pain, it is always best to go to the emergency department for clinical evaluation and to rule out potentially serious causes.