Symptoms:

Symptoms of stable angina are often predictable. This means that the same amount of exercise or activity may cause your angina to occur. Your angina should improve or go away when you stop or slow down the exercise.

The most common symptom is chest pain that occurs behind the breastbone or slightly to the left of it. The pain of stable angina usually begins slowly and gets worse over the next few minutes before going away.

The pain may feel like tightness, heavy pressure, squeezing, or crushing pain. It may spread to the:

• Arm (usually the left)
• Back
• Jaw
• Neck
• Shoulder

Some people say the pain feels like gas or indigestion.

Some patients (women, older adults, and people with diabetes) may have different symptoms, such as:

• Back, arm, or neck pain
• Fatigue
• Shortness of breath
• Weakness

The pain of stable angina usually:

• Occurs after activity or stress
• Lasts an average of 1 - 15 minutes
• Is relieved with rest or a medicine called nitroglycerin

Angina attacks can occur at any time during the day, but a higher number occur between 6 a.m. and noon.

Other symptoms of angina include:

• A feeling of indigestion or heartburn
• Dizziness or light-headedness
• Nausea, vomiting, and sweating
• Palpitations
• Shortness of breath
• Unexplained tiredness after activity (more common in women)

Signs and tests:

Your health care provider will do a physical exam and measure your blood pressure. Tests that may be done to diagnose or rule out angina include:

• Coronary angiography
• Coronary risk profile (special blood tests)
• ECG
• Exercise tolerance test (stress test or treadmill test)
• Nuclear medicine (thallium) stress test
• Stress echocardiogram