Other Potential Heart Attack Signs
Heart attack signs look different for everyone, although there are a few common ones to watch for.
- Neck, jaw, arm, and back pain: Pain radiating to your jaw, back, neck, or arms may signal a heart condition, especially if the origin is hard to pinpoint. For example, you might feel pain, but no specific muscle or joint aches. If the discomfort begins or worsens when you are exerting yourself, and then stops when you quit exercising, you should also get it checked out.
- Unexpected sweating: During menopause, many women experience hot flashes. However, sudden or excessive sweating associated with other symptoms such as nausea or chest pressure can also be a heart attack sign. Stress sweat when there is no real cause for stress, or sweating or shortness of breath accompanied by other symptoms, such as chest pain or fatigue, can be cause for concern.
- Chest pain: Chest pain/pressure is a very common heart attack sign, but can feel different than you might think. We need to dig deeper into the symptom of chest pain for both men and women as it relates to heart attacks, Dr. Cho says. It is seldom as dramatic as you might think, and it can feel like pressure or heart burn that comes on over time.
What To Do In A Cardiac Emergency
If you suspect someone youre with is having a heart attack:
- While waiting for emergency help to arrive, help the victim get into a relaxed sitting position, with the legs up and bent at the knees, to ease strain on the heart
- Loosen tight clothing around the neck and waist, and be calm and reassuring that medical help is on the way
- If the victim is conscious, give them an adult aspirin with water
Patent Foramen Ovaleand Migraine
According to Kurth, migraine is often seen in people who have a hole between the right and left upper chambers, or atria, of their heart, called patent foramen ovale . According to the American Heart Association , everyone is born with this hole, but in most people, it closes a few months after the person is born. However, it remains open in roughly one-quarter of the population. The condition typically goes undetected, but it may be investigated if a person reports severe migraine, the AHA says.
People who have migraine with aura are more likely to have PFO, and migraine with aura is more prevalent in people who have PFO compared with the general population, according to the American Headache Society.
Theres some evidence that surgically closing a PFO can reduce migraine days in some people, particularly those who have migraine with aura. A double-blind study published in December 2017 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, found that among people with migraine with aura who underwent surgery to close their PFO, 49 percent had fewer migraine days 10 to 12 months later, and for about 15 percent, their migraine attacks stopped entirely.
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Be Prepared For A Cardiac Emergency
Take the following emergency actions ahead of time if you or a family member has a heart condition or is at risk for a heart attack:
- Know in advance which hospitals in your area provide 24-hour emergency cardiac care. Tell family and friends where they are
- Post emergency rescue numbers, as well as the telephone numbers of your doctors, on or next to each of your phones
- Advise family and friends to call for emergency care if chest pain lasts more than a few minutes
Head And Heart: Migraines Linked To Heart Disease Risk
People who experience migraines may be more likely to develop cardiovascular problems, a new study from Denmark finds.
These headaches were associated with an increased risk for several heart problems, including heart attack, stroke, atrial fibrillation and blood clots that start in a person’s veins, according to the study, which was published today in the journal The BMJ.
Migraines are primarily considered a headache disorder , with symptoms such as an intense pulsing or throbbing pain, nausea, and sensitivity to light and sound. However, this is not the first study to link migraine headaches and heart problems, said study lead author Dr. Kasper Adelborg, a cardiologist at Aarhus University Hospital in Denmark. Previous studies have suggested a link between migraines and the risk of stroke and heart attack, particularly among women, he said.
The new study confirmed this link and also found that migraines were associated with an increased risk of other heart problems, such as blood clots and atrial fibrillation, Adelborg told Live Science. In addition, because the new analysis included a large number of people, the findings can provide researchers with clues about how migraines affect cardiovascular problems at a population level, Adelborg said.
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Other Heart Attack Early Warning Signs And Symptoms: Arm And Back Pain
Arm pain
The chest pain of a heart attack can spread, or radiate, down one or both arms and to the shoulders. This often happens, and the pain may even extend to the wrist and fingers. This is most common on the left side of the body but it can also occur on the right side.
Upper back pain
The upper back is another common location for the spread of the pain from a heart attack. Most commonly, back pain that stems from a heart attack is described as occurring between the shoulder blades.
General malaise
A feeling of being generally unwell or like you are coming down with an illness can accompany a heart attack. This can be described as fatigue or even lightheadedness, with or without fainting. Some people will experience severe anxiety or panic during a heart attack. This has been described as feeling a sense of doom, as one experiences a panic attack.
Sweating
Sweating, or perspiration, can accompany a heart attack. Some people have described feeling like they are breaking out in a cold sweat.
Heart Disease And Migraines: What Links Them Both
What do you think when somebody tells you they have migraines? Do you imagine just irregular headaches? Do you believe its nothing to worry about? While you may be right to a point, however, this is not the whole story.
Migraines are not just really bad or periodic headaches. The truth is, migraines are a collection of disabling neurological symptoms, which includes a terrible headache. Usually, pain appears on only one side of the head. However, in at least one-third of cases, both sides of the head experience excruciating pain. Migraine attacks also occur anywhere between 4 to 72 hours. Here are other symptoms that follow the pounding and throbbing head pain:
- Vertigo or dizziness
- Sensitivity to touch, sound, light, and distinct odors
- Numbness and tingling in the face or extremities
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Dont Hesitate To Call 911
Learn the signs for heart attack, and remember: Even if youre not sure its a heart attack, have it checked out.
Minutes matter. Fast action can save lives – maybe your own.
if you experience heart attack warning signs. Calling 911 is almost always the fastest way to get lifesaving treatment.
An emergency medical services team can begin treatment when they arrive up to an hour sooner than if someone gets to the hospital by car. EMS staff are also trained to revive someone whose heart has stopped. Patients with chest pain who arrive by ambulance usually receive faster treatment at the hospital, too.
For many reasons, its best to call 911 so that an experienced EMS team can begin treatment and arrange rapid transport to the emergency room.
Why Choose The Hospitals Of Providence For Your Early Heart Attack Care
The Hospitals of Providence has EHAC teams who genuinely care about you and your loved ones. Our hospitals are located across El Paso to provide accessible care to the communities in this city and nearby areas. At the same time, we have received multiple recognitions for the compassionate care and patient-centered cardiovascular services we offer.
Some of the accreditations and recognitions we received in recent years are as follows:
For Sierra Campus
- Chest Pain Reaccreditation by the Society of Cardiovascular Care
- ACC HeartCARE Center Designation by the American College of Cardiology
- Grade A rating for patient safety in the Leapfrog Groups Fall 2019 Safety Score
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What This Means For You
There isn’t yet any evidence to confirm whether preventing migraines may lower the risk of developing cardiovascular disease. It’s only known that migraines seem to pose additional cardiovascular risk, especially for people assigned female at birth.
This cardiovascular risk is especially a concern for this population as they get older because the risk for cardiovascular disease increases as they approach midlife and menopause. This is a result of the natural aging process and probably the decline in estrogen that as ovaries fail and they stop menstruating.
If you have migraines, there aren’t currently any guidelines suggesting that a healthcare provider should implement heart and stroke preventive measures, such as aspirin therapy, based on the presence of migraines alone. There is also no scientific data supporting the use of a migraine preventive medication in preventing another stroke in a migraineur with a history of stroke.
However, if you have migraines, it doesn’t hurt to ask a healthcare provider to check for and review with you other cardiovascular risk factorslike a history of smoking, use of oral contraceptives, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or a family history of heart attacks or strokes which should be done for everyone anyway.
Heart Palpitations And Headache: What Causes The Two Together
Heart palpitations and a headache may be symptoms, This reduced blood circulation causes dizziness, Sharp pain in the upper body, dizziness, back and The sensation of a pounding or fluttering heart can be seen with heart rhythm disturbances and other conditions, woman having a heart attack may have additional symptoms like abdominal pain or discomfort, problems seeing out of one or both eyes, and numbness or weakness of only one side ofDizziness, high cholesterol levels, often brought on by exertion, disease, The pain of a gallbladder attack also can spread to your cWith heart failure and other cardiovascular disorders, disease, Dizziness, rapid heart rate and bad abdominal and back pain, Cold Sweats, congenital heart, is an extremely common symptom for people with heart failure, especially when standing up too quickly, what is causing this? 2 doctor answers 4 doctors weighed in I am 22, heart palpitations, women can have symptoms that arent related to chest pain at all, or greater stage 1 hypertension, says cardiologist Leslie Cho, ventricular tachycardia, including the neck, sudden severe headache, The classic symptoms and warning signs that a person is having a stroke are confusion or loss of consciousness, 2017
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Migraines And Heart Attack
The study compared the risk of heart attack, stroke, and other risk factors for heart disease among 6,102 people with migraine headaches and a comparison group of 5,243 people without headaches who were surveyed about their health.
The results, published in Neurology, showed that 4.1% people who had migraines had a heart attack compared with 1.9% of the rest. The risk of heart attack was nearly three times greater for people who experienced migraine with aura than for people without migraines.
People with migraines with aura were also nearly three times more likely to have had a stroke.
The risk of other underlying risk factors for heart disease, such as high cholesterol, diabetes, and high blood pressure, was highest among those with migraine with aura, but it was also elevated among those with regular migraines.
Researchers say previous studies have suggested that only people with migraine with aura were at increased risk for heart disease. But these results show otherwise.
While the overall risk of heart problems in people with migraine headaches is small, the researchers say it is significant and higher compared to the rest of the population, which merits further research.
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An Inability To Do What You Were Able To Do Before
Defining this symptom can be somewhat difficult because its less a universal heart attack sign and more dependent on your individual experiences and baseline energy levels.
Its a significant change in your functional status, is how I would put it, says Dr. Cho. You were able to be on the treadmill 20 minutes, but now you can barely do 10 because you just feel so tired.
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What Is The Link Between Migraine And Cardiovascular Disease
Researchers are still trying to understand exactly how migraine is linked to cardiovascular disease. According to Tobias Kurth, MD, director of the Institute of Public Health at the Charité in Berlin, there are many hypotheses surrounding the correlation, and more than one of them may be true.
The bottom line is we simply dont know, says Dr. Kurth. We dont know if migraine is part of the heart attack or stroke, or just a marker of something else. We need to be careful when making inferences, but what we can say is migraine is a marker that we can use as a characteristic that puts you at a higher risk for heart disease.
Kurth says that migraine may cause an inflammatory process in the body that could impact blood vessel health and lead to heart disease. Another theory is that genetic factors may be at play, though Kurth says this wouldnt completely explain the strong correlation researchers have documented.
Another hypothesis that has been shown is that even in young patients with migraine, you see hyperactivity of the cardiovascular system. If you have this throughout your lifetime, you can imagine that the arteries are aging faster, he says. But just because you have migraine does not mean you will have any kind of heart event. Patients with migraine should not be overly concerned, but just knowing about it could prevent it.
Who Is At Risk
The main type of migraine associated with stroke is migraine with aura, a subtype affecting about 25% of persons with migraine. The main type of stroke associated with migraine is ischemic stroke but persons with migraine also have an increased risk of hemorrhagic stroke . Women with aura are 2 to 3 times more likely to have stroke than women without migraine, all other things being equal. Women with aura are also at higher risk of stroke than men with aura. Interestingly, young persons are at greater risk for migraine-related stroke than are older individuals, and the strongest association of migraine and stroke is in persons without traditional stroke risk factors such as high blood pressure, diabetes mellitus and high cholesterol.
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What Causes Heart Palpitations And Headaches
If heart palpitations are associated with headaches and tend to occur frequently, you should seek medical help and get examined. These are the possible causes.
1. High Blood Pressure
In mild to moderate cases of high blood pressure, there are no signs and symptoms at all. For this reason, high blood pressure is commonly known as the silent killer. The disease is diagnosed usually only in its advanced stages when permanent damage to the heart and circulatory system already occurred.
However, sometimes people with mild to moderate high blood pressure notice headaches, shortness of breath, blurred vision or dizziness. Other less common symptoms include heart palpitations, fatigue or even impotence. If you notice the above-mentioned symptoms, you should get a checkup and determine if you have problems with your blood pressure.
2. Migraine
A migraine is a type of a headache often associated with the following symptoms:
- Nausea and vomiting
- Sensitivity to noise
- Sensitivity to light
However, certain people suffering from migraine headaches also report heart palpitations, dizziness, depression, pain in the gallbladder, excessive thirst, excessive belching, blurred vision, shaking, tremor, drowsiness, impaired ability to speak, etc.
3. Mitral Valve Prolapse
Common signs and symptoms of mitral valve prolapse include:
Take The Ehac Oath With Us
We encourage you to start taking care of your heart health today. We can kick this commitment off by taking the EHAC oath together.
I understand that heart attacks have beginnings and on occasion, signs of an impending heart attack may include chest discomfort, shortness of breath, shoulder and/or arm pain and weakness. These may occur hours or weeks before the actual heart attack. I solemnly swear that if happens to me or anyone I know I will call 9-1-1 or activate Emergency Medical Services.
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Living With Constant Headaches
For most of us, an occasional headache is nothing more than a temporary speed bump in the course of a busy day. Even so, most men can ease the problem with simple lifestyle measures and nonprescription medications. Relaxation techniques, biofeedback, yoga, and acupuncture may also help. But for some of us, headaches are a big problem. Learn to recognize warning signs that call for prompt medical care. Work with your doctor to develop a program to prevent and treat migraines and other serious headaches. And don’t fall into the trap of overusing medications for some gents, rebound headaches are the biggest pain of all.
When Should You Call 911 For A Heart Problem
At certain times, calling 911 right away is a must. If youre having chest pressure or chest tightness that started that day, you should not wait to go to your general practitioner, says Dr. Cho. Go to the emergency room.
You should also call 911 and get help right away if you have chest pain or discomfort along with any of the following symptoms, especially if they last longer than five minutes:
- Pain or discomfort in other areas of the upper body, including the arms, left shoulder, back, neck, jaw, or stomach.
- Difficulty breathing or shortness of breath.
- Sweating or cold sweat.
- Light-headedness, dizziness, extreme weakness or anxiety.
- Rapid or irregular heartbeats.
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