Heart Attack Signs and Symptoms

A part of the muscle that forms the heart, is fed or let's say, supplied with blood by a blood vessel. This blood vessel is known as the coronary artery. In some cases, what may happen is, a blood clot may cause blockage in the blood flow through this very blood vessel. And this is when the person experiences what is known as a heart attack, clinically known as myocardial infarction. It has been studied that if the blood flow to the heart faces interruption, it may lead to serious damage of a part of the heart muscle. Considering earlier times, most people now are able to survive heart attacks. During earlier times, this kind of disorder was considered severely fatal. However, over time, many improvements have taken place with the treatment and awareness of this condition, which have made patients able to cope with it effectively.

Signs of An Impending Heart Attack

The classic symptom of heart attack is a chest pain, which may keep on increasing in frequency, and a kind of squeezing pain that seems to originate from the center of the chest, lasting for a more than a few minutes. Also, the pain that originates in a heart attack does not remain localized. Instead, it tends to radiate to the areas of the shoulder, arm, back, and sometimes even to the teeth and jaw. The feeling of pain in the upper abdomen, if accompanied by all these symptoms and has a prolonging effect, then it may be a sure indication of a nearing heart attack. Shortness of breath, abnormal sweating, fainting, vomiting could also indicate a heart attack.

Signs of heart attack in men differ from those that occur in women, in some respects. As you can infer from the above explanation, chest pain is regarded to be the most pronounced sign of a heart attack. However, a study conducted on more than 500 women showed that about 43% of the total figure, experienced no chest pain, before they were hit by a heart attack. Common indicants of this condition in women may include dizziness or lightheadedness and abnormal fatigue. Abdominal pain or heartburn may also be present as other signs.

Treatment

Treatment of heart is influenced by the severity of the symptoms. It mainly focuses on restoring the blood flow to the heart, as soon as possible. For this, the patient might be treated with medications that fight blood clotting, drugs which help dissolve blood clots and some medicines which are known to stop the formation of new blood clots. Then, there are some other medications such as those which help make the blood less sticky, pain relievers, beta blockers to help relax the heart muscles, and cholesterol lowering medications. In addition to these, some patients might have to undergo surgical procedures to reduce the fatality of the condition.

It must be noted that not everyone will experience such signs and symptoms, and of the same degree before having a heart attack. It is known as a silent heart attack, and although it can occur in any person, it is more common in people with diabetes.