What is the difference between anginal pain and pain in myocardial infarct?

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How anginal pain differs from the pain in a myocardial infarct?

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Specializes in acute/critical care.

Angina is the name that you give the pain when people have a MI.

People can have angina without having an MI. Typically these patients have known CAD and they are to self-treat the angina at home with rest, nitroglycerin, etc. This is called "stable angina."

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Specializes in ICU, Telemetry.

The ten cent answer is angina pain usually goes away with nitro and rest; an MI the pain keeps going. However, having said that, I have seen "silent heart attacks" where the person had no pain at all, but all the other symptoms of a MI. Usually, that's in diabetics -- for some reason, they get all the other symptoms, but either no pain or very little.

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I've had to cram so much stuff into my brain this year, let's see if I remember some of it.

Anginal pain is relieved w/nitro, MI pain, when present, is intractable. I'm sure there must be other distinguishing features, but the OP was asking specifically about pain.

right or wrong?

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Specializes in Critical Care, Emergency Medicine, Flight.

angina- is pain related to ischemia , the heart needs more oxygen.and is relieved by rest./nitro.

MI- caused by a physical blockage in a vessel. nitro helps but if theres an occlusion it wont "fix" it.

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Specializes in Cardiac, Pulmonary, Anesthesia.
The ten cent answer is angina pain usually goes away with nitro and rest; an MI the pain keeps going. However, having said that, I have seen "silent heart attacks" where the person had no pain at all, but all the other symptoms of a MI. Usually, that's in diabetics -- for some reason, they get all the other symptoms, but either no pain or very little.

Diabetics have silent MI (painless) related to the microvascular disease causing neuropathy (same reason they can't tell their shoes are too tight).

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[color=#000]angina is chest pain that accompanies ischemia.

and the death of a portion of the heart for ischemia called " myocardial infarction" (heart attack)

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