What is Heart attack?
A heart attack occurs when blood flow to your heart is blocked, so it can't get the oxygen it needs. This is a medical emergency. Call 911 immediately at the first sign of any symptoms. Don't wait to see if the symptoms go away.
A heart attack occurs when the flow of blood and oxygen to your heart is blocked, causing heart muscle tissue to die. (Photo credit: BS IP/Medical Images)
Heart attack is also called myocardial infarction, (MI). "Mayo" means muscle, "heart" means heart, and "infarction" means tissue death due to lack of blood supply. Death of this tissue can cause permanent damage to the heart muscle.
Heart attack symptoms
Symptoms of heart disease:
Discomfort, pressure, heaviness, stiffness, tightness, or pain in your breast, arm, or underarm
Discomfort in your back, jaw, throat, or arms
Feeling of fullness, nausea, or shortness of breath (can also feel nausea)
Sweating, nausea, vomiting, or dizziness
Severe weakness, anxiety, fatigue, or shortness of breath
Fast or irregular heartbeat (palpitations)
Watch out
Heart attack symptoms can vary from person to person, or from one heart condition to another. Women and people assigned female at birth are more likely to have these symptoms of heart disease:
Unusual fatigue
Don't hold your breath
Nausea or vomiting
Dizziness or lightheadedness
Discomfort in your gut (maybe like indigestion)
Discomfort in the neck, shoulders, or upper back
He has trouble sleeping
With some heart attacks, you don't feel any symptoms ("silent" myocardial infarction). This is more common in people with diabetes.
What is heartache?
Heartburn feels like a sharp pain in the chest, when someone squeezes your chest hard or carries a heavy load. This pain can last for a moment.
You may also feel weak, dizzy or faint, and start sweating profusely. Sometimes you have mild pain in your jaw, neck, back, or arms. You may also experience difficulty breathing.
What is silent heartache?
As the name suggests, silent heart pain usually occurs without obvious heart symptoms, such as dizziness, rapid or irregular heartbeat (palpitations), difficulty breathing, and anxiety. It's hard for you to know if you have silent heart disease because it happens without warning.
Information about heart disease
More than one million Americans suffer from heart disease each year. According to the CDC, it happens to someone in the United States every 40 seconds.
Heart disease occurs in both men and women, and both men and women are born. Although you're more likely to develop it as you age, there are many risk factors, including variable high blood pressure, high LDL ("bad") cholesterol, diabetes, and smoking.
Types of heart disease: When someone is having a heart attack, some of the words you may hear are:
ST EMI, (ST-elevation myocardial infarction): A heart attack in which a coronary artery is completely blocked.
NST EMI (Non-ST-Elevation Myocardial Infarction): A heart attack in which the coronary arteries are narrowed enough to significantly reduce blood flow, but not completely blocked.
MONICA (myocardial infarction with non occluded coronary artery): A heart attack in which there is no obvious obstruction in the main coronary artery.
Sudden cardiac arrest is not a heart attack. You may think of heart disease as a problem with the heart's arteries, but a sudden heart attack is when the heart's electrical system suddenly fails, causing the heart to stop pumping.
Heart attacks and angina
Angina is not a heart attack. These symptoms can sometimes mean heart disease. I mean chest pain. Although it can happen with heartburn, it can also happen for other reasons. The sensation may occur during normal activity or exertion, but may disappear when you rest or take nitroglycerin.
With angina, you may feel:
Feeling of pressure, pain, tightness, or fullness in the center of the breast
Pain or discomfort in the shoulders, arms, back, neck, or jaw
Call 911 if it gets worse, lasts more than 5 minutes, or doesn't get better after taking nitroglycerin. Doctors call this angina "unstable", and it is an abnormal condition associated with future heart pain.
Instead, if you have "stable" angina, which is more common, your symptoms are usually triggered by predictable triggers (emotional stress, exercise, extreme high or low temperatures, even heavy meals). Symptoms disappear if you rest or take nitroglycerin as prescribed by your doctor. If not, call 911.
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