Read This Guide To Know When Chest Pain Is a Real Concern

If you wake up in the middle of the night with chest pain, your mind might automatically think you're having a heart attack. After all, it’s the number one killer disease in the US. And the number one symptom is the vague term “chest pain”, which can be misleading because it’s not always painful nor always in the chest. 

In most cases, people imagine they will have severe chest pain and dismiss the actual symptoms of a heart attack, go back to sleep and suffer one. Below I will discuss the symptoms you will and won’t feel if you are having a heart attack and what you should do, and in which cases you should seek help immediately. 

How chest pain from a heart attack feels

The typical pain described is a feeling of tightness, squeezing or heaviness in the chest. The Latin term angina pectoris, meaning sensation in the chest, is a more accurate description. This pain has been described as feeling like a band or weight is being tightened around your chest. The pain is often on the left side and above the bottom rib-cage, although it’s often difficult to determine its exact location. 

 

Other typical symptoms include: 

• Shortness of breath 

• Sweating, nausea, and anxiety 

• Pain in the left arm, jaw or neck

What other symptoms I might feel  ?

While the typical symptoms are definitely a reason to visit your physician, sometimes people feel less typical pains, which could also indicate that you are having a heart attack. 

• Pain not on the left side – sometimes the pain is located on the right, center or top of the abdomen. 

• No pain – some people don’t experience pain and only feel shortness of breath. Research indicates that no chest pain symptoms can occur in 1/3 of people having a heart attack. 

• Sharper pain - some people report sharper chest pains or the feeling of indigestion. 

How long should the chest pain last?

The next indication of whether you are suffering a heart attack is pain duration. Consider the following 3 factors: 

 

1. Heart-attack-related chest pain comes on over several minutes and not suddenly. Sudden severe pain is a reason for concern, but it is not consistent with angina. 

 

2. The chest pain lasts for at least 5 minutes and doesn’t last continuously for more than 20 to 30 minutes. 

 

3. Pain that comes on during rest, or doesn’t go away after exertion, also indicates a heart attack. 

 

Do I have any of the major risk factors?

Doctors like to consider the risk factors when determining whether your chest pain is a heart attack. They will take high-risk patients with atypical symptoms more seriously than low-risk patients with classic symptoms. 

 

• Age – the risk increases as you age. For men it’s after the age of 40 and for women it’s after the age of 50. It can happen to a younger person, but it’s more unlikely. 

 

• Sex – this is not to say women aren’t affected by heart disease, but the risk for heart attacks is higher for men. 

 

• Genetics – your risk is significantly higher if a member of your immediate family had or has coronary heart disease. The risk is even higher if that family member was a man under 50 or a woman under 60. 

 

• Hypertension, diabetes, and cholesterol – these diseases increase your risk of having a heart attack considerably. 

 

• Smoking – while most people think smoking destroys your lungs (and it does), more smokers die from heart disease. Smoking substantially increases the risk of you having a heart attack.

What it shouldn't feel like

 

Some chest pain is not consistent with having a heart attack. 

 

• Sharp and brief pain – stabbing pain that lasts only a few seconds is not coming from the heart. 

 

• Persists for hours – heart attack chest pain will last for 20-30 minutes at the most and typically ends with a heart attack. 

 

• Gets worse with movement – the sort of pain that worsens when pressed on is usually from chest bone or muscle pains and not the heart. 

 

• You can pinpoint the pain with a single finger – heart chest pain tends to be difficult to locate exactly. 

 

If you have a worrying pain, there is no harm in having it checked out. It’s better to have lesser symptoms checked out than to stay at home and actually have a heart attack. If you are high risk, don’t hesitate to have the pain examined. If you are high risk and have the classic symptoms, I advise going to the emergency room or calling an ambulance.

This is only for your information, kindly take the advice of your doctor for medicines, exercises and so on.   

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8 Signs That Your Heart isn't Working Properly

 According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in the US alone, around 610,000 people die of heart-related problems each year. They are many signs that warn us about heart trouble that we should all be more aware of. Here are 8 of them. 

 

1. Pain That Spreads to the Arm

Many men experience pain in their left arm, while women experience the same pain in either arm. Some women have even said that they experienced an unusual elbow pain before having a heart attack. This occurs because the pain from your heart travels to your spinal cord where many nerves of your body are connected and your brain gets confused and thinks that your arm is in pain, when it’s not actually the case.

 

2. Coughing That Won’t Stop  

Persistent coughing can be caused by a number of factors, one of which is cardiovascular disease. Persistent coughing which produces a pinking liquid that contains some blood is very common with heart failure. Coughing can also be a symptom of a much more serious symptom, which is dyspnea – a sudden shortage of breath. 

 

 

3. Swollen Legs, Ankles, and Feet

When your heart is not working well, fluid from your blood vessels leaks into surrounding tissues. This is more noticeable in your legs and feet because of gravity. This is known as a peripheral edema and many people who have it don’t actually have heart disease. However, it’s still a common symptom among heart disease patients, so if you notice swelling, visit the doctor. 

 

 

4. Lack of Appetite and Feeling Nauseous 

Many people who are suffering from heart disease have a lack of appetite and/or nausea. This is caused by a build-up of fluid around the liver and the intestines that interfere with proper digestion. These symptoms are usually followed by abdominal pain and if you’re experiencing them all together, you need to visit the doctor.

5. Extreme Levels of Anxiety

A number of studies have shown that people who suffer from extreme anxiety from very early on in their lives are prone to heart disease. Anxiety can be caused by either a very stressful lifestyle or various disorders such as panic attacks and phobic anxiety. Some of the effects of anxiety on your heart include increased blood pressure, decreased heart rate, and tachycardia. 

 

 

 

6. Losing Consciousness or Fainting 

Feeling lightheaded and losing consciousness is very common among heart patients. This occurs because the heart isn’t pumping blood well due to a blocked artery or the narrowing of a valve. If you ever feel short of breath and you faint for a short period of time, consult your doctor immediately. 

 

 

 

7. Skin Rashes or Unusual Spots

Two research projects have shown that eczema and shingles are high-risk factors of heart disease. Those who have had eczema were found to have a 48% chance of suffering from high blood pressure and a 29% chance of having high cholesterol. Furthermore, those who have had shingles were 59% more likely to have a heart attack than people who have never had this condition. 

 

 

 

 

8. Your Skin Becomes Paler or Takes on a Bluish Color 

This is not a common symptom, but when it does appear, it could be due to reduced blood flow and a decreased number of red blood cells. Shock is the main reason for this symptom and the paleness can appear over your entire body or a certain part, such as a limb. If you’re paler than usual but are not in shock, visit the doctor as it could be anemia.

This is only for your information, kindly take the advice of your doctor for medicines, exercises and so on.   

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8 Sneaky Heart Attack Symptoms Women Might Be Ignoring

Heart disease is a top killer of women, but heart attack symptoms are different than in men. Here are the top signs to look for.

There’s a big disconnect between what women think a heart attack would feel like—excruciating chest pain—and what it actually does feel like. A professor points out: “Other than the reproductive system, the cardiovascular system has the most differences between genders.” So it’s to be expected that the symptoms—while sometimes shared with men in a general sense—can also be experienced differently. After all, “we have much smaller vessels in our heart,” says the Dr. who was among the first to zero in on women’s heart attack symptoms in a 2003 study. “And we’re constructed differently.” 

When a woman’s main arteries are blocked, she’ll often experience a constellation of signs, including chest pain, pressure, or tightness, along with multiple non-chest symptoms, says a Dr. What’s more, not every woman experiences the same symptoms, and the symptoms don’t necessarily happen all at once. We spoke with experts and women heart-attack survivors about what exactly some of those symptoms might be and what they actually feel like. Here are a few that surprised us most.

 A funky-feeling arm
I felt like my arm was asleep,” says a school counselor, who, incredibly, survived three heart attacks in one week at the age of 40. For the first two, the feeling would emerge for a couple of minutes and then go away. By the time she arrived at the hospital, the symptoms were gone and she was sent back home without treatment. “I thought maybe I was working out too hard at the gym or I slept on it wrong,” she says. By the time the third heart attack struck, that feeling was much more intense and persistent, and impossible to ignore. Another heart attack survivor, described her arm as feeling “sore”—a part of a general soreness experienced in her entire upper left side, along with her jaw and chest. At the time, she was 37 and a corporate vice president who organized international events; she’d jet-set from country to country on a regular basis—so naturally, she attributed it to the stress of travel. It wasn’t until a co-worker (who had himself experienced a heart attack) insisted on taking her to a hospital did she realize the shocking truth: She just had a heart attack.

A really sore jaw

Along with arm issues, fatigue, and shortness of breath, jaw problems often emerge months before an attack and then intensify during the actual event. A spokesperson, described it as "like the way your mouth feels after you've come home from the dentist and the Novocaine hasn't quite worn off." As with the arm, the jaw also acts up because of what doctors call "referred" pain, explains the  cardiologist and author of the study. "That pain comes from the heart," she says. Dr. recalls a patient who first complained about her jaw to her dentist, and was given treatment for TMJ. When that didn't help, her wisdom tooth was removed. Of course, the pain only got worse— until she ended up in the hospital with a heart attack and was finally properly treated. 

Nausea and vomiting

In a 2018 study that examined women and men who experienced a heart attack before age 55, two-thirds of women said they'd experienced epigastric (upper-abdominal) issues, such as indigestion, nausea or stomach pain, notes the article's lead author. Only half the men reported similar problems. As the author describes that day she was rushed to the hospital with her third heart attack: "I wanted to vomit so badly." After treatment, she adopted lifestyle changes that included eating a heart healthy diet.  She now helps lead other patients in living healthier

Shortness of breath

 This can catch you by surprise while you're in the middle of running a meeting at work, doing household chores, or even while you're lying down. An early symptom of a heart condition can be the need to prop yourself up in bed in order to breathe better. "You feel out of breath because when your arteries are blocked, there is not enough oxygen being delivered throughout the body," explains the Dr. "If the heart has been damaged or a heart attack is happening, the heart may not have the ability to push the blood forward and this can cause fluid back up into the lungs." 

Etreme fatigue

According to Dr., "Women tend to dismiss symptoms because we are used to feeling uncomfortable on a monthly basis. The key to knowing when to get checked is to assess whether the things that you do every day and are normal for you suddenly become difficult, or you get symptoms while you are trying to do them." The Dr. remembers having to crawl back to her bedroom after cleaning her shower; she felt weak and wanted to take a nap.

Dr. tells of one patient who reported that she was so tired, she could only make one side of the bed. She needed to rest before making the other. "It's not this pronounced in every woman," says the lead author of the study on women and heart disease. But if the fatigue gets progressively worse, or you don't feel better after you've slept, then you should see your doctor.
When a patient was hit with episodes of extreme fatigue, she blamed it on her hectic travel schedule. By the time she arrived at the hospital, where she waited and waited to be seen—no one suspected she was having a heart attack—the fatigue and feelings on the left side of her body became so overwhelming, she couldn't move or talk. "I felt like I was going to pass out," she says. Fortunately, she received treatment before it was too late. She now owns her own company in order to have control over the work-life balance, and she helps others learn about the importance of knowing your heart disease risk factors. 

Upper-back pain

A patient reports that her back issue was the only symptom that she'd describe as actually painful. "It felt as if it was behind my heart," she says. Other women have described it as a sharp pain between the shoulder blades, which intensified at the time of the heart attack. 

An odd feeling in the chest

 Women don't necessarily describe it as "chest pain"—much less a emergency kind of pain. "There isn't just one way to describe chest pain and women often describe it as 'chest tightness' or 'chest pressure,' " says a Dr., who also points out that women may not associate their symptoms with a heart attack because of other non-chest symptoms, like fatigue, muscle pain, or stress. The lady felt a "strong tingling sensation—almost like electricity was shooting out of my chest." What's more, she says, it would come and go, and, in the beginning, would last two or three minutes at a time. About six months before her actual heart attack, she went to her primary care physician  because she was convinced it was breast cancer. The doctor did a breast exam, found nothing, and sent her home. The lady eventually noticed that her entire left side—her chest, her jaw, her arm—just felt "weird."

Flu-like symptoms

 "Women might say, 'I'm so tired. I must have a virus,'" says Dr. They might convince themselves that all they've got are flu symptoms, many of which resemble the conditions above, including body aches, fatigue, and nausea. But if there's anything about the sensations that seems different or more intense than anything you've ever felt before, get it checked out. While they may turn out not to be symptoms of a heart condition or precursors to a heart attack, you're better off not ruling out the possibility—even if you're under 55 and especially if you have a family history of early-onset heart disease. If you have even the slightest question you might be having a heart attack, call the emergency number.

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