Microvascular disease can feel like a heavy, tight or squeezing chest pain called angina, which can last a long time even when resting.
Microvascular disease can also cause shortness of breath, nausea, dizziness and unexplained fatigue.
The pain with microvascular disease can also radiate to your arms, your jaw, neck or back.
And symptoms of microvascular disease can be frustrating as they are not often caused by blockages in the large arteries, which make the standard tests ineffective.
A microvascular disease is a condition which affects your small blood vessels throughout your body.
The small blood vessels that microvascular disease affects are called microvasculature.
The microvasculature small blood vessels are crucial for delivering the needed oxygen and nutrients to the tissues and for also removing waste products.
The different types of microvascular disease are coronary microvascular disease, cerebrovascular microvascular disease and peripheral microvascular disease.
Peripheral microvascular disease, affects the small blood vessels in your legs, arms and feet and results in pain, swelling and even ulcers.
Cerebrovascular microvascular disease affects the small blood vessels in your brain, causing stroke, cognitive decline and dementia.
And coronary microvascular disease affects the small blood vessels in your heart, which leads to chest pain, shortness of breath and fatigue.
Microvascular disease can be caused by several things which include inflammation, obesity, smoking, high cholesterol, diabetes and high blood pressure.
Symptoms of microvascular disease include chest pain, shortness of breath, fatigue, cognitive decline, leg pain and swelling and even foot ulcers.
Diagnoses of microvascular disease can be difficult because symptoms of microvascular disease can be nonspecific.
Tests like blood tests, blood pressure monitoring and even imaging can help diagnose microvascular disease.