Heart Attack Symptoms—What Are The Signs You Might Be Having a Serious Heart Condition?
According to the American Heart Association, heart disease is the number one killer of people in our country. The group estimates that for the 2.3 million people who will die this year, an astonishing 41 percent will be from heart conditions.
Isn’t that one of the most sobering things you’ve ever read? I mean, I realize that heart disease claims many lives every year—but almost half of those who die?
In addition, the association’s website: www.americanheart.org states that 59 million Americans are currently living with some form of heart disease.
If you’ve read my last blog on heart disease, you already know that sadly, my Dad is in that second group of people. He had a heart attack about a year ago and underwent successful open heart surgery, a triple bypass, and a valve replacement. I’m so thankful for the fantastic team of doctors who took such good care of him.
What I’d like to do today, is go over the many signs and symptoms of a heart attack. Some of them you’ve probably heard before, and some of it might be new, but all of them are important to be aware of.
According to the AHA’s website, while some heart attacks come on very very quickly (what they call “the movie heart attack”—a term that I think is really descriptive), in most cases, the symptoms come on slowly and over time. Here are what they consider to be the most classic and common symptoms:
• Chest discomfort—feeling pain in the middle of the chest that may go away and then come back, or that lasts several minutes. It can feel like pressure, squeezing, pain or fullness. Many people have used the comparison that it feels like an elephant sitting on their chest.
• Discomfort in other parts of the body—like the jaw, arms, neck, back, or stomach.
• Shortness of breath, with or without chest discomfort.
• Other signs may include nausea, breaking out in a cold sweat, or lightheadedness.
One of my friends used to be a 911 operator, and she once described the fairly intense medical training she and her co-workers went through to learn how to answer those emergency calls. She said that when she was learning about heart attacks, one thing that struck her as very interesting was when the instructor said that denial is also often a symptom of a heart attack. In many cases, she was told, people will have horrible chest pain and trouble breathing, and they will also be completely convinced that they are just fine and nothing is wrong with their heart.
This makes total sense to me—I’m sure most people think there is just no way they can possibly be having a heart attack. So if your spouse or friend is complaining of these symptoms yet denies that anything is wrong, you’ll have to be ready to convince them otherwise.
The same goes for you. God forbid anyone who is reading this blog will ever have a heart attack, but if you feel any of these symptoms, please call 911 and get help. Unfortunately, denying that a heart attack is happening won’t make it go away. But calling 911 and getting to the hospital immediately can literally make the difference between life and death.
One thing that the AHA website also notes, which I found to be very interesting, is while men and women seem to both feel chest discomfort or pain while having a heart attack, women are more likely to also experience the other common symptoms, especially shortness of breath, nausea or vomiting, and back or jaw pain.
This actually brings me quite nicely to my next issue—the question of if women are having different symptoms than men, or if we are just describing them differently. This is a topic that has come up during my research on heart disease and I wanted to throw it out to see what you thought about it.
I’ve read about cases where a woman has gone to her physician, described her symptoms, and has been sent home with a diagnosis of something like acid reflux, only to die of a heart attack the next day.
Obviously, these women were in the middle of a major heart problem, yet something happened that caused their doctor to send them home with a relatively minor diagnosis. But why is that?
What I’m thinking, is that perhaps some women just aren’t putting as much emphasis on their symptoms as they should. Maybe if we used terms like “crushing pain in my chest” as opposed to something more vague, well-meaning physicians wouldn’t be erring in their diagnoses.
I suppose it could also be true that we do feel the symptoms differently. Maybe men are more likely to have an intense squeezing feeling in their chests, and for women it’s more mild—I’m not sure. Like I said in a previous blog, men and women are different—so it would make sense that our experiences with the same health problems are different too.
At any rate, I want you to make me a promise. If you ever feel like something isn’t right with your heart, please call 911 and get some help. I know that many of us worry about it being nothing, and inconveniencing those nice EMT guys who come to your house and everything. But believe me—they would much rather take you to the hospital for what turns out to be a false alarm, then take you to the hospital after your heart has stopped beating.
Do you think that men and women are having different heart attack symptoms, like the AHA has suggested, or do you think it seems like they are different because we communicate them in different ways? Have you had a heart attack or known someone who has? What were some of the symptoms you experienced?
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Michelle,
Yes, it's actually true that women can experience different symptoms. I watched an episode of Oprah about this very thing. They interviewed women who had had heart attacks, some of whom only suffered back pain, nausea and extreme fatigue. The fact that women don't necessarily feel chest pain is one of the reasons they get sent home without having an EKG.
And in fact, a woman watching that episode of Oprah recognized her own symptoms, went to the ER soon after, and also was told it wasn't a heart attack. She didn't leave until she'd had an EKG, and it proved she was correct.
Here is an article in which Oprah's Dr. Mehmet Oz talks about how men and women have different symptoms:
http://www.bestsyndication.com/?q=20081008_heart_attacks_women_dr_oz_opr...
And here's one patient who credit's Dr. Oz's information with saving her life:
http://www.oprah.com/article/health/20090423-tows-best-dr-oz/12
The National Institutes for Health emphasize that women may have different symptoms than we've all been taught to expect from "the movie heart attack" (I love that term too):
http://usgovinfo.about.com/cs/healthmedical/a/womensami.htm
Their study followed up on 515 women who had had heart attacks. Some of the findings:
-- 95 percent said they'd experienced some symptoms for up to a month
-- most common symptoms: unusual fatigue (70 percent), sleep disturbance (48 percent), and shortness of breath (42 percent).
-- less than 30% reported chest pain or discomfort prior to their heart attacks, and 43% reported have no chest pain during any phase of the attack.
In addition to calling 911 if you think you are having a heart attack, the recommendation is to crush or chew a full-strength aspirin and take it with a glass of water. It helps prevent further clotting and can make a big difference in the following hours.
The National Coalition for Women with Heart Disease has a great page titled "Are You Having A Heart Attack?" that's worth reading and then printing out and putting in a kitchen drawer or another place where you can find it later for reference:
http://www.womenheart.org/supportForWomen/prevention/questionHeartAttack...
Their recommendations:
1. Call 911
2. Chew an aspirin with some water
3. Ask for an EKG and/or blood enzyme test at the hospital if they're ready to send you home without one.
I am looking into the Subject because my dad has just had a minor Heart attack - he described his symtoms as indigestion / heartburn and toothache, together with short breath - after phoning the clinic they told him they were sending an Ambulance to get him
As the the fact of Woman experiencing a Heart Attack differntly to men:
First of all I think Womans pain Thresholds are higher than mens - might lead as suggested to not expressing the sypmtoms properly.
Secondly the Chest-Build up of a woman is definitely different to that of a man (we have breasts) - Perhaps some woman dont realize an elephant sitting on their chest cause they have learned to live with that feeling every day. But perhaps it is something as sinple as the tissue being different (muscles and fats due to our breasts) that either diverts the pain elswehere or prevents as much pain from ocurring.
And last but not leats: a woman who has born a child might instinctively breathe different whilst suffering pain in the chest or elsewhere (leftover from Prenatal classes perhaps?) - could this perhaps cause some kind of pain relief in any way? And if she is doing it instinctivly, without actually noticing it - would she experience the pain in the same way, as if doing it knowingly?
nano