What causes chest pain after meals?

For friends who suffer from chest pain after meals, they really want to know the causes of chest pain after meals. So what causes chest pain after meals? Next, this article will introduce you to the relevant content about why chest pain occurs after meals, for your reference only. Friends who want to know more about this can take a look! Please see the detailed introduction below.

What causes chest pain after meals? Chest pain after meals may be caused by coronary heart disease. Coronary atherosclerotic heart disease is a heart disease caused by atherosclerotic lesions in the coronary arteries, which causes narrowing or blockage of the blood vessel lumen, resulting in myocardial ischemia, hypoxia or necrosis, and is often called "coronary heart disease." However, the scope of coronary heart disease may be broader, also including inflammation, embolism, etc. that lead to stenosis or occlusion of the lumen.

Coronary heart disease is triggered by physical activity, emotional excitement, etc., and the patient suddenly feels pain in the precordial area, which is mostly paroxysmal colic or squeezing pain, or a feeling of stuffiness. The pain starts behind the sternum or in front of the heart, radiates upward to the left shoulder, arm, and even the little finger and ring finger. It can be relieved by resting or taking nitroglycerin. The chest pain may also radiate to the neck, jaw, teeth, abdomen, etc. Chest pain may also occur at rest or at night, caused by coronary artery spasm, also known as variant angina. If the nature of chest pain changes, such as new progressive chest pain, the pain threshold will gradually decrease, so that it may occur even with slight physical activity or emotional excitement, or even when resting or sleeping. The pain gradually intensifies, changes frequency, and lasts longer. It cannot be relieved by removing the cause or taking sublingual nitroglycerin. At this time, unstable angina is often suspected.

What should I do if I have chest pain after eating? If coronary heart disease is diagnosed, the treatment is as follows:

1. Changes in lifestyle habits: quit smoking and limit alcohol consumption, eat a low-fat and low-salt diet, do appropriate physical exercise, control your weight, etc.

2. Drug treatment: anti-thrombotic (antiplatelet, anticoagulant), reducing myocardial oxygen consumption (β-blockers), relieving angina pectoris (nitrates), lipid-regulating and plaque-stabilizing (statins).

3. Revascularization therapy: including interventional therapy (endovascular balloon angioplasty and stent implantation) and surgical coronary artery bypass grafting. Medication is the basis of all treatment. Long-term standard drug treatment should also be maintained after interventional and surgical treatment. For the same patient, a certain stage of the disease can be ideally controlled by drugs, while at another stage, drug treatment alone is often ineffective and requires the combination of drugs with interventional therapy or surgical procedures.

The above is an introduction to what causes chest pain after meals. I believe that after reading the above introduction, you already know what causes chest pain after meals. From the above introduction, we can know that coronary heart disease is the main cause of chest pain after meals. Therefore, for friends who have symptoms of chest pain after meals, it is best to go to the hospital for an examination.