Here are some common presentations which might be suggestive of an impending heart attack:
- Chest Pain/Discomfort: You may feel a constricting, squeezing type of pain in the left side of your chest region. The pain radiates down your left hand to your left little finger. It may also spread to the left shoulder and left side of the back. The pain lasts for a few minutes and comes and goes.
- Difficulty in breathing: You may start panting and heavy breathing. This is usually seen prior to the chest pain. It may occur without chest pain too.
- Sweating: Profuse sweating occurs,making the skin all cold and clammy.
- Anxiety: You may feel sudden fear or anxious all of a sudden, of some unknown terror or danger might happen.
- Nausea and Vomiting: You may suddenly feel nauseous with a severe urge to vomit.
- Dizziness: Sudden attack of light-headedness or dizziness with floating black spots in front of your eyes may make you pass out for a few minutes.
- Indigestion: Constant retrosternal burning and acidity.
These form the ideal clinical picture of the person having a heart attack. The severity and presence of symptoms and signs may vary from person to person.
Note
Silent Heart Attack: This is a condition where there are no symptoms at all or the symptoms are mistaken for some other disease and often overlooked and mistreated.
Obese people,diabetics, smokers are at the highest risk of developing silent heart attack.
