After You Call Emergency Services
When you call emergency services, the dispatcher may ask you about the medicines you take and your allergies. If you dont currently take a blood thinner and you arent allergic to aspirin, the dispatcher may advise you to chew an aspirin while youre waiting on medical attention. If you have nitroglycerin tablets, you may also wish to use these as directed by your doctor to reduce chest pain.
If you have a list of medications you currently take or any information about your medical history, you may wish to take this information with you. It can speed your medical care.
Chest Pain Pressure And Discomfort
Most people with heart attacks experience some sort of chest pain or discomfort. But its important to understand that chest pains dont occur in every heart attack.
Chest pain is a common sign of a heart attack. People have described this sensation as feeling like an elephant is standing on their chest.
Some people dont describe chest pain as pain at all. Instead, they may say they felt chest tightness or squeezing. Sometimes this discomfort can seem bad for a few minutes and then go away. Sometimes the discomfort comes back hours or even a day later. These could all be signs your heart muscle isnt getting enough oxygen.
If you experience chest pains or tightness, you or someone around you should call 911 immediately.
Pain and tightness can also radiate in other areas of the body. Most people associate a heart attack with pain working its way down the left arm. That can happen, but pain can also appear in other locations, including:
- upper abdomen
American Heart Association , some women may even think their heart attack symptoms are flu-like symptoms.
A heart attack can cause exhaustion due to the extra stress on your heart to try to pump while an area of blood flow is blocked. If you often feel tired or exhausted for no reason, it could be a sign that something is wrong.
Always Tired Chronic Fatigue And Heart Health
Common symptoms that you might be having a heart attack include chest discomfort, shortness of breath, severe nausea, and unexplained profuse sweating. While fatigue is also often included in that list, some people have misconceptions about its link to a heart event.
Fatigue is one of the most common complaints patients report to medical providers. It is a nonspecific symptom that can be associated with a range of conditions, such as thyroid problems, flu or many other infections, sleep disorders, and celiac disease or other autoimmune diseases. But what about the fatigue caused by chronic fatigue syndrome ? What role might it play in your heart health?
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The Earliest Symptoms Of Heart Failure Are Often Very Subtle But It’s Dangerous To Ignore Them
It’s an unfortunate truth that your body slows down in your sixth and seventh decades. Climbing a flight of stairs that you once took two at a time can now feel as daunting as scaling Mount Everest. While some degree of vitality loss can be attributed to natural aging, fatigue and breathlessness may also be signals that your heart is not functioning as well as it should. “There is a general tendency for people to ignore heart failure symptoms and attribute them to just getting older. Therefore, it was very important for us to create an easy way to identify those symptoms,” says Dr. Mandeep R. Mehra, medical director of the Heart and Vascular Center at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
FACES of heart failure
Heart failure occurs when something damages the heart muscle or reduces the heart’s ability to pump effectively. Most often, the damage stems from coronary artery disease or heart attack. But faulty heart valves, longstanding high blood pressure, or genetic disease may also be to blame. No matter what the cause, the failing heart can no longer pump well enough to keep up with the body’s demand for oxygen-rich blood.
To help both doctors and patients quickly spot a possible combination of heart failure symptoms, the Heart Failure Society of America developed a handy tool that goes by the acronym FACES.
F = Fatigue. When the heart can’t pump enough oxygen-rich blood to meet the body’s energy needs, a general feeling of tiredness or fatigue sets in.
Dont Ignore These 15 Symptoms Of Heart Disease
Your heart is an indispensable organ. It beats around 100,000 times per day, which averages out to around three billion heartbeats in your lifetime. A little larger than your fist, your heart is a muscle that pumps blood through your circulatory system. Because your heart is so important for your good health, its important to be aware of symptoms of heart disease. Here are 15 symptoms of heart disease you should never ignore.
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Heart Disease Warning Signs
Heart symptoms may not always be explicit so do not ignore any potential cardiac warning signs. What are the warning signs of heart disease? Some warning signs not to ignore include: shortness of breath, heartburn, muscle soreness, painful hiccups, neck or upper back pain, or other symptoms discussed in this slide show. People with known heart disease or significant risk factors such as people over age 65, strong family history of heart disease, obesity, smokers, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, or diabetes should pay extra attention to any possible cardiac symptoms.
Fatigue An Early Sign Of Heart Attack
Unusual fatigue and sleeplessness might be early warning signs of a heart attack in women, a study suggests. The study, published Monday in the American Heart Association journal Circulation, surveyed 515 women who had heart attacks and found that 95 percent had such symptoms as much as a month before they were stricken.
Chest pains can be early indicator of a heart attack, but 43 percent of the women in the study said they never experienced chest discomfort, said researcher Jean C. McSweeney.
The study is the first time researchers have identified fatigue and sleeplessness as possible early warning signs of a heart attack in women.
If we can get women to recognize the symptoms early, we can get them treatment and prevent or delay a heart attack, said McSweeney, a professor at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock. Thats why the early symptoms are significant.
The researchers said they do not know whether the findings also apply to men, who tend to have somewhat different symptoms when a heart attack strikes.
InsertArtThe study surveyed women ages 29 to 97 who had been released four to six months earlier from five hospitals in Arkansas, North Carolina and Ohio after suffering a heart attack. They were shown a list of 70 symptoms they may have experienced during the months leading up the heart attack and were asked to rate them based on frequency and severity.
The women had more than just ordinary fatigue and sleeplessness.
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Chronic Fatigue & Heart Disease
If youre chronically tired, this can be a sign of many other heart problems. Fatigue can be a sign of heart valve problems or heart failure. Also, studies have linked chronic fatigue with several heart problems. For example, many people who experience chronic fatigue also have left ventricular dysfunction. This is a heart condition where your left ventricle doesnt pump blood properly. The left ventricle is the thickest heart chamber and is responsible for pumping blood full of oxygen to your organs. Congestive heart failure commonly follows left ventricular dysfunction. Therefore, its important to talk to our womens health care provider if youre feeling extra tired without an explanation.
Indigestion Nausea And Vomiting
Often people begin experiencing mild indigestion and other gastrointestinal problems before a heart attack. Because heart attacks usually occur in older people who typically have more indigestion problems, these symptoms can get dismissed as heartburn or another food-related complication.
If you normally have an iron stomach, indigestion or heartburn could be a signal that something else is going on.
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Warning Signs Of A Heart Attack
Not all heart attacks are alike
Did you know that you can have a heart attack without feeling any chest pain? Heart failure and heart disease dont show the same signs for everyone, especially women.
The heart is a muscle that contracts to pump blood throughout the body. A heart attack occurs when the heart muscle doesnt get enough blood. Blood carries oxygen and nutrients to the heart muscle. When there isnt enough blood flowing to your heart muscle, the affected part can get damaged or die. This is dangerous and sometimes deadly.
Heart attacks happen suddenly, but they normally result from long-standing heart disease. Typically, a waxy plaque builds up on the walls inside your blood vessels that feed the heart muscle. Sometimes a chunk of the plaque, called a blood clot, breaks off and prevents blood from passing through the vessel to your heart muscle, resulting in a heart attack.
Less commonly, something like stress, physical exertion, or cold weather causes the blood vessel to contract or spasm, which decreases the amount of blood that can get to your heart muscle.
There are many risk factors that contribute to having a heart attack, including:
A heart attack is a medical emergency. Its really important to listen to what your body is telling you if you think you might be having one. Its better to seek emergency medical treatment and be wrong than to not get help when youre having a heart attack.
Reason : Your Heart Needs Exercise
Your instinct may be to baby a heart damaged by heart failure, but the opposite is true.
Aerobic exercise strengthens all muscles in the body, including the heart, says Cardiac Rehabilitation Director Erik Van Iterson, PhD, MS.
A heart that pumps more strongly increases the delivery of oxygenated blood throughout the body, which your body needs to generate energy and battle fatigue. You can actually make yourself worse by doing nothing.
A cardiac rehabilitation program and guided exercise training therapy can put you on the right track, both physically and mentally. All heart failure patients need cardiac rehab, he says.
If you were not raised in a culture that promoted exercise, you may find the concept intimidating. Dr. Van Iterson emphasizes that any exercise you do will be beneficial.
Exercise means different things to different people. There is no one-size-fits-all model to follow, he says.
Attending a cardiac rehab program enables you to be assessed for the type of exercise that will be safe based on your age, experience, overall condition and the condition of your heart. You may never have thought that walking around your neighborhood would be beneficial, but if you are for example in your mid-70s, have heart failure and have never exercised before, it will be, says Dr. Van Iterson.
Be patient and stay motivated. You wont feel better overnight. It may take weeks or months of consistent exercise to feel the difference, says Dr. Van Iterson.
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Heart Attack And Unusual Tiredness
Sudden on-set of extreme fatigue or tiredness is one of the top heart attack symptoms for women. Along with chest discomfort, shortness of breath, and indigestion, abrupt and unexpected fatigue is another symptom that many women experience before they have a heart attack.
The American Heart Association conducted a study in 2003 to learn which symptoms women might have of a heart attack. They looked at 515 women who had had a heart attack and found that many noticed unexplained fatigue and trouble sleeping. Some of the women even experienced these symptoms up to one month before their heart attack. The researchers in the study suggested that these symptoms may serve as an early warning sign.
In the study, 70% of the women experienced unusual tiredness before their heart attack. Also, 48% noticed they had sleep disturbances beforehand. Only 30% of the participants reported feeling chest discomfort, the symptom that most of us think of when we hear heart attack. Whats even more interesting, most didnt report chest pain, but rather chest discomfort like tightness, aching, or pressure. The researchers suggested that recognizing symptoms like unexplained tiredness and difficulties sleeping may help people seek womens health care to potentially help prevent or delay a heart attack.
Unusual Fatigue May Be Warning Symptom Of Heart Attack In Women
- Date:
- American Heart Association
- Summary:
- In a study of women who had heart attacks, symptoms such as unexplained fatigue or trouble sleeping were experienced as much as a month before the heart attack, indicating the possibility that acting on these advance symptoms could prevent an impending heart attack.
DALLAS, Nov. 4 In a study of women who had heart attacks, symptoms such as unexplained fatigue or trouble sleeping were experienced as much as a month before the heart attack, indicating the possibility that acting on these advance symptoms could prevent an impending heart attack. The study, one of the first comprehensive examinations of issues that might allow prevention of imminent heart attack in women, is reported in today’s rapid access issue of Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.
“Since women reported experiencing early warning signs more than a month prior to the heart attack, this could allow time to treat these symptoms and to possibly delay or prevent the heart attack,” said Jean C. McSweeney, Ph.D., R.N., lead author and a professor in the College of Nursing at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock.
Only 30 percent reported chest discomfort before their heart attack. They described the discomfort in terms like aching, tightness and pressure not pain, McSweeney said.
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Chest Discomfort Is Linked To Heart Attacks But What About Signs Of Heart Failure Valve Problems And Irregular Heartbeats
Chest pain is not always present in people with heart disease. Instead, other symptoms can be the signals that alert you to heart disease.
“Any symptom that seems to be provoked by exertion and relieved by rest could be heart-related. Particularly in people with underlying risk factors such as high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, tobacco use, a sedentary lifestyle, obesity, and a strong family history of heart disease, other symptoms besides chest pain may be the clue to a heart problem,” says Dr. Randall Zusman, a cardiologist with Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital.
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Fatigue Shortness Of Breath Swelling
These symptoms can result from heart and blood vessel problems. In particular, there is a possibility of heart failure that cannot supply enough blood to the whole body due to the deterioration of the heart function. Heart failure is a name that refers to a condition rather than a disease name, and there are various causes such as ischemic heart disease, valvular heart disease, and arrhythmia. In addition to these causes, other factors such as high blood pressure, infections, and anemia can be the trigger.In addition to heart failure, similar symptoms may occur due to decreased renal function or abnormal thyroid function, so differentiation by examination is required.
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Suddenly My Pulse Gets Faster And Im Throbbing And My Chest Feels Painful But Suddenly It Subsides
With these symptoms, you may have a tachyarrhythmia that increases your heart rate. The normal pulse rate is approximately 60 to 90 times per minute. If your pulse in a resting state without exercise or tension clearly exceeds 100 beats / minute, you may have some problems. Arrhythmias that increase the pulse include paroxysmal supraventricular tachycardia, paroxysmal atrial fibrillation, and ventricular tachycardia. Depending on the nature, frequency, and duration of the attack, the required treatment such as drug therapy and catheter ablation will vary greatly.
Symptoms Of Congenital Heart Defects
Congenital heart defects may be diagnosed before birth, right after birth, during childhood, or not until adulthood. It is possible to have a defect and no symptoms at all. Sometimes, it can be diagnosed because of a heart murmur on physical exam or an abnormal EKG or chest X-ray in someone with no symptoms.
In adults, if symptoms of congenital heart disease are present, they may include:
- Shortness of breath
- Symptoms of heart failure or valve disease
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The Clues Can Be Subtle: Monty’s Recliner
Monty is 75 years old, and his doctor had noted his heart murmur several years ago. He recently went to visit his son David for a few days.
- Each night Monty would go to bed in the guest bedroom and the next morning David would find him sleeping in the family room recliner.
- David asked if he was unable to get comfortable in the bed, and Monty replied that he felt unable to get a deep breath when lying down and the recliner seemed to help.
- Monty insists that its not a problem, but David wonders if he should urge him to check in with his health care provider.
Would you recognize this behavior as a possible sign of valve disease progression?
When To Go To The Hospital
You need to seek emergency treatment if you have any of these symptoms:
Chest Pain
Chest pain should always be considered a serious symptom because it can indicate an emergency situation. If you’re experiencing chest pain and any of these factors apply to you, you should seek emergency care:
- You have a strong family history of early heart disease.
- You’re 45 years old or older and you have any of the risk factors for coronary artery disease, including obesity, smoking, family history, diabetes, high cholesterol, or a sedentary lifestyle.
- The pain is worse than any other chest pain you’ve had.
- The pain feels like it’s spreading to your neck, shoulders, upper abdomen, arms, back, or jaws.
- The pain is crushing, tight, heavy, or feels like squeezing.
- You also feel nauseous, fatigued, weak, short of breath, dizzy, sweaty, or you’ve fainted.
- You feel like something is very wrong.
- The pain keeps getting worse as the minutes pass.
- The pain is unlike anything you’ve experienced before.
Heart Attack Symptoms
If you have symptoms of a heart attack, be sure to seek emergency medical care. These symptoms include:
- Chest or arm pain, pressure, or discomfort that may spread to your neck, back, or jaw
- Shortness of breath
- Dizziness and loss of coordination
- Fainting
- Difficulty breathing
If you’re with a loved one and suspect he or she is having a stroke, use these measures to help you determine if there’s a problem:
Sudden Cardiac Arrest
- Collapsing suddenly
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