You may have heard that every 40 seconds, someone in the United States dies from a heart attack. To put it into context, that means by the time you’ve finished brushing your teeth (for at least two minutes, ideally), three people have suffered fatal heart attacks.
Although you can survive a heart attack, the sooner you get to the hospital, the better your odds. About 50% of heart attack deaths occur within the first hour after the attack. Call 911 as soon as you think you or somebody else is having a heart attack. Every minute counts. Also try to chew an uncoated aspirin to minimize damage to your heart.
At Laurelton Heart Specialist in Rosedale, Queens, in New York City, our team is committed to your heart health. Led by our renowned and caring cardiologist, Dr. Ola Akinboboye, we urge you to familiarize yourself with the early warning signs of a heart attack.
What happens before you have a heart attack? Following are some of the earliest symptoms and signs.
Hollywood got one thing right: Chest pain (aka angina) is often a sign of an impending heart attack. However, the sensation may vary in severity and type. Your may feel:
If you have a history of angina, the pain is less severe and usually goes away within 10-30 minutes or with a dose of nitroglycerin. With a heart attack, pain usually lasts for more than half an hour.
But don’t guess. Even if you have angina, if you feel like you're having a heart attack, call 911 or your cardiologist right away.
A woman, especially, may feel pain in areas other than the chest when she’s having a heart attack. A warning sign of a heart attack could be a sharp pain in your:
Chest pain can also radiate to your arms or shoulders in both sexes. You may have these symptoms for hours or even weeks before your heart attack.
Women are more likely to die of a heart attack than men are. These less-obvious and easier-to-ignore symptoms that occur in women may be one reason why. Don’t ignore odd, sharp pains in your head and torso.
A counterintuitive sign that you could be about to have a heart attack is an attack of nausea that could progress to vomiting. Although researchers aren’t sure why this occurs, they do have a theory.
When you have a heart attack, some of the cells in your heart die. As they die, they release biochemicals that activate parts of the vagus nerve that are attached to the heart. These signals then trigger the brain to experience nausea. The gastrointestinal system responds by vomiting.
If you feel short of breath after mild exercise, you may be having a “silent” heart attack. When your heart can’t pump sufficient blood because it’s dying, that affects your lung function, too.
You might also feel lightheaded or dizzy. Again, without the oxygen your heart supplies by pumping blood, your organs can’t operate at full steam.
Women are more likely than men to experience shortness of breath as an early warning of a heart attack. Be sure to contact us if you feel breathless or lightheaded for no apparent reason.
It’s always best to err on the side of caution if you think you’re having a heart attack. Although many other conditions can share the symptoms listed above, none of those symptoms should be ignored. Something is wrong. If it’s a heart attack, getting to the emergency room in time can save your life.
If you think you may have had a heart attack in the past, we can tell by performing an echocardiogram, aka echo. The echo lets us examine your heart and arteries noninvasively. If you’ve had a heart attack, or if there are problems with your heart, we then design a treatment plan to keep you safe.
Are you at risk for, or fear you’ve already had, a heart attack? Call our expert team at 718-208-4816 or use our online outreach form for a heart evaluation today.
