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Dr. Suzanne Sorof
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VIDEO: Dr. Sorof – What Are Angina And Coronary Artery Disease Symptoms?

Dr. Sorof describes how chest pain and coronary artery disease manifest in women.

Dr. Sorof:
Angina and coronary disease can present much differently than it does in men. You can have typical signs which are the crushing chest pain radiating into the jaw causing some shortness of breath down your left arm, not really numbness in your arm but mostly heaviness or arm pain. But in women we get different symptoms and the thinking is that estrogen will change the dynamics of our hormones and how we present.

A lot of women present with shortness of breath. They can be fatigued or have a lot of weakness. There’s an overwhelming sense of panic or impending doom that they just can’t get comfortable. They feel like the activities that they are normally used to doing are just so strenuous for them they can’t complete them. They feel nervous and anxious because they can’t do the things that they are doing and a lot of times they just overall feel fatigued like a flu-like symptoms.

Sometimes when people present they can say things like, “I feel like I am having the flu,” and it can throw a doctor off that they start looking for things like fever and elevated white blood counts but those can be the presenting signs of angina or blockages that are found in the coronary vessels.

About Dr. Sorof, M.D.:
Dr. Suzanne Sorof, M.D., is board certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine in Cardiology and Internal Medicine. She earned her medical degree at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. She also completed her residency in Internal Medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine Affiliated Hospitals Residency Program. Dr. Sorof completed her cardiology fellowship at MetroHealth Medical Center, Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. She then completed a fellowship in interventional cardiology at Virginia Commonwealth University, Medical College of Virginia Hospitals in Richmond, Virginia. Dr. Sorof has extensive training and experience in all aspects of clinical cardiology as well as cardiac and peripheral intervention.

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