Know the Warning Signs of Heart Attack
A heart attack is an urgent message—straight from the heart. It's a heart's way of saying it's starved for oxygen.
When a clot blocks a heart vessel, oxygen-rich blood can't reach the heart. The heart muscle begins to die, and symptoms of a heart attack begin.
Some heart attacks are sudden and intense, but most start slowly with mild pain and discomfort. Surviving a heart attack depends upon how well you recognize and react to these symptoms.
Remember that "Time is muscle." The sooner you receive medical care, the sooner heart muscle can be saved.
Call 9-1-1
Call 9-1-1 immediately if you experience the following symptoms for two minutes or more:
- Sudden shortness of breath.
- Sudden sweating or flu-like symptoms, including nausea, clamminess or cold sweats.
- Unusual fatigue, light-headedness, weakness or dizziness.
- Pain that radiates. Men and women often experience this pain differently, as explained below.
- Intermittent pain that lasts more than a few minutes, or goes away and comes back. This sensation can feel like uncomfortable pressure, squeezing or fullness.
- Anxiety or a feeling of doom.
- For those with angina: Any change in the frequency, duration or intensity of symptoms, which do not respond to nitroglycerin.
For Men and Women, Symptoms May Differ
It's a little-known fact that men and women experience slightly different heart attack symptoms. The main difference is with how pain radiates.
For men, pain will spread to the left shoulder, down the left arm, or up to the chin.
For women, this pain can be much more subtle. It may travel to the left or right arm, up to the chin, shoulder blades and upper back—or to abdomen (as nausea and/or indigestion and anxiety).
Women are also more likely to experience these accompanying symptoms: shortness of breath, nausea, vomiting and back or jaw pain.
What Is Chest Pain?
When we speak of chest pain, we're talking about the pain and discomfort that can be an early sign of heart attack. There are many ways to describe this pain, including tightness or unusual pressure in the center of the chest.
While pain can radiate to the shoulders, arms, neck, jaw or back, people often mistake this pain for indigestion, which can be dangerous.
Because women's symptoms are often different, it can be more difficult to diagnose a woman's heart attack.