Thanks again everyone!!! Some of you have answered some of the questions I have had. I asked the doc last Fri night about doing less invasive testing before doing the cath and he said the only way to really see was to go in and look and fix any problems while in there. I thought they were too eager to do the cath but obviously not.
Sherrine I'm so sorry the docs didn't listen to you and your hubby. I think they have learned a lot in the past 10 yrs since he died. It's just very sad that people have to die for medicine to go forward. That's like my dad dying of Hodskins (cancer of the lymph nodes) 35 yrs ago and now it is 85 to 90% curable. They asked us if they could do an autopsy after his death for research reasons and we agreed to it and if it helped in anyway I'm glad we did.
So I guess for us women with fibro that have chest pain the only way to rule out heart problems is by doing the cath. I've already had one done about 15 yrs ago cause there was a blurp on an echo I had but they didn't find anything wrong back then. The pain I was having turned out to be from the esophagus. I do worry cause I smoke and my BP is all over the place.
So maybe for some of us older women on here that do wonder sometimes about our chest pains this is a learning experience. There are a few that has already been through it. My oldest sister had four stents put in two years ago at 63. She doesn't have fibro and was lucky enough to have had pain before she had a heart attack.
luv and hugs
Marlee