1. < Heart & Blood Health

Coronary artery stents

Posted by astohrer @astohrer, Mar 27 9:07am

I am the owner of three brand new drug eluting stents and am having discomfort some folks are describing as "stent pain" or "stent stretch". It was constant for the first two or three days after my cardiac cath and now occurs when I begin exercising. It is NOT angina per cardiac rehab. Any other stent owners experiencing this, any ideas about when it will go away?

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rainerhans | @rainerhans | Mar 28 7:49am

My husband experienced exactly the same, we were worrying for weeks, visited ER and the cardiologist 2 times, who got already inpatient with us.
He described it like the same kind of pressure, he experienced before getting the stunt.
Everything looked fine though.
Finally our family doctor explained us, that it can be totally normal, this “ stent stretch”.
What a relief after all these weeks of being worried.
And he was right, after about 2 months the pressure disappeared.
2 years after, he still feels wonderful.

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1 reply
astohrer | @astohrer | Mar 28 8:31am
In reply to @rainerhans "My husband experienced exactly the same, we were worrying for weeks, visited ER and the cardiologist..." + (show)
@rainerhans

My husband experienced exactly the same, we were worrying for weeks, visited ER and the cardiologist 2 times, who got already inpatient with us.
He described it like the same kind of pressure, he experienced before getting the stunt.
Everything looked fine though.
Finally our family doctor explained us, that it can be totally normal, this “ stent stretch”.
What a relief after all these weeks of being worried.
And he was right, after about 2 months the pressure disappeared.
2 years after, he still feels wonderful.

Jump to this post

Thanks. A few months seems long but I will try to be patient. 🙂

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1 reply
rainerhans | @rainerhans | Mar 28 12:08pm
In reply to @astohrer "Thanks. A few months seems long but I will try to be patient. :-)" + (show)
@astohrer

Thanks. A few months seems long but I will try to be patient. 🙂

Jump to this post

First make sure to let your cardiologist check on you, to be on the safe side.
Good luck 🍀

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johnmk | @johnmk | Apr 7 2:17pm

Thx for the discussion everyone. This Jan. I received 2” LAD stent. I have been having intermittent chest soreness (not really pain, pressure, or s.o.b.) since. This began the night of my stenting. It was my first experience with any chest discomfort at rest. Kind of freaked me out. Cardiology explained that it was probably stent stretching. I had 25 years of ICU experience and, that was new to me. Strange that it is not mentioned more often in the literature. Otherwise, I am symptom free.

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astohrer | @astohrer | Apr 7 3:51pm

Hi, @johnmk -
The only reason I knew about stent pain was because of a post by Carolyn Thomas, https://myheartsisters.org/. I had never heard of it either. As of right now, I am three days free of stent pain (what I called my Lego pain because it felt like I had a Lego lodged in my chest) and am hoping I am done with that. It lasted four and a half weeks.

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