7 Signs Of A Heart Attack Women Need To Know

  Concern about your health. So sharing this article by Dr. Terrence Baruch (via MindBodyGreen) on signs of heart attack, so that you are aware about the symptoms and pay more attention to it.    

When you see a male actor have a heart attack on TV, he has all the classic signs: He breaks out into a sweat, clutches his left arm, says he feels like an elephant is sitting on his chest, and then gracefully collapses.

As a heart specialist at a big hospital, I treat people with heart attacks every day. More than half of my patients are women—and women don’t usually have those dramatic heart attack signs. In fact, most women (and even some men) having a heart attack don’t realize what’s happening to them and how serious it is. They don’t call 911 for help until it’s too late.

Heart attacks don’t happen just to men. Some 435,000 women have heart attacks each year, and about 267,000 of them die—six times as many as die from breast cancer. If you’re a woman, recognizing these seven common signs of a heart attack could save your life:  

1. Chest pain. It's often a feeling of pressure or mild discomfort anywhere in the chest—not just on the left side where your heart is.
2. Mild to severe pain or a sense of pressure in other parts of your body. You might feel pain in places such as your stomach, shoulder, arm, throat, or even jaw. Women often ignore this, thinking it will just go away.
3. Stomach pain or nausea and vomiting. Many women mistake this sign for indigestion or a stomach flu.
4. Sudden fatigue or weakness. If you suddenly feel as if getting up from your chair to go into the kitchen would be as difficult as running a marathon, you may be having a heart attack.
5. Dizziness or lightheadedness. This could be mistaken for lots of things, but it’s a common sign of a heart attack in women.
6. Shortness of breath. If you can’t get your breath even when sitting still, a heart attack could be the cause.
7. Suddenly breaking out into a cold sweat. This isn’t anxiety or hot flashes—it’s often a sign of a heart attack.

Know the signs—a heart attack is a medical emergency. If you want to live, call 911!

 

About Dr. Terrence Baruch

Terrence Baruch, MD, FACC has been practicing interventional cardiology since 1988 in the Pasadena-Arcadia area of Los Angeles County, California. He has performed more than 10,000 cardiac procedures in that time; well over 500 have been emergency angioplasties for treatment of acute myocardial infarction. He is the director of the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory and the founder and director of the Heart Attack Program at the Methodist Hospital of Southern California. Dr. Baruch played an active role in the development of one of the first regional heart attack programs in southern California. He helped develop a program that trained emergency medical services (EMS) personnel to recognize a suspected heart attack, stabilize the patient, and then transport him or her to a cardiac center of excellence. Because of his expertise and vast experience, Dr. Baruch has been a national speaker on the state-of-the-art treatment of myocardial infarction, sponsored by companies such as Schering-Plough, Lilly, and Aventis. He has lectured at multiple hospitals in more than 20 states.