What does a heart attack feel like?

 Just wondering. 

Kind of ironic but it feels a lot like when a WLSer experiences dumping syndrome. Here ya go, Lance....

What does a heart attack feel like?

The pain associated with a heart attack differs from person to person. Many people describe it as a heavy pressure or squeezing sensation in the center of the chest. Others report a stabbing feeling. At times the pain may radiate to the left arm, jaw or back. The intensity of the pain is not an indicator of the degree of heart damage that may be occurring. Some people don't have any symptoms during a heart attack.

A characteristic of chest pain associated with a heart attack is that it is often unrelenting. Once it begins, there is usually nothing that you can do at home to stop the pain. Pain does not improve with rest, position changes, over-the-counter medications and even nitroglycerin.

Often, people who are having a heart attack, or myocardial infarction as it is called in the medical community, describe other symptoms associated with the chest pain. These may include:

• Sweating
   
• Dizziness
   
• Shortness of breath
   
• Palpitations
   
• Paleness
   
• Nausea and vomiting
   
• An anxious feeling with a sense of impending doom
   

Some people, especially women, people with diabetes and the elderly, do not have typical heart attack symptoms. While these people often have chest pain, it may be mild. They may more commonly complain of neck, shoulder, and belly pain; breathlessness, heartburn, nausea, and lasting tiredness.

A couple of small nits to pick, since I'm in class to upgrade my EMT certification, and oddly enough, we're in the cardiac emergency chapter this week.

A myocardial infarction happens when a heart attack progresses to the point that muscle dies. Up to that point, the proper term is ischemia, meaning insufficient blood flow; it's analogous to having your leg go to sleep.

As long as you are still dealing with ischemia, nitroglycerin will provide relief from the pain, but at the expense of a phenomenal headache. YOU STILL NEED TO GET YOUR BUTT TO THE HOSPITAL YESTERDAY TO DEAL WITH THE SITUATION.

If you have a sensation of heartburn, and antacids or other medications do not relieve it, you should suspect a heart problem. See the previous paragraph for proper steps to take.

FWIW, my paternal grandfather had silent heart attacks, and to the best of my knowledge, he was not diabetic.

Oh, and Boner, a parting shot: your list of symptoms and the associated text appears to have been lifted from my paramedic's textbook...

Good post, Bob. Ya, I just googled "what does a heart attack feel like" cut it and pasted it in the message. Looked accurate to me so went with it. I don't source everything when it's a quicky and reads like a textbook.

Boner

In my experience...man, I hate saying that...It was like this:

I woke up feeling a little nauseous. My chest felt weighted. My forearms were numb on the underside. Wierd, but that's what put me in the cardiac unit for a week last year.

Remember, if you will, that I was a strange cardiac case, though. Mine was brought on via a raging strep throat infection which migrated and caused damage to my pericardium. It has finally been documented as a "chemical infarct with zero physical damage or suspect to return." Basically, because my troponin response was enacted (a two on the scale....), they have to mark it as SOME kind of heart attack. oh well. I still get my swerve on!

bye.

Well, my experience was nothing like the "usual" symptoms that people describe.  I had a total of 5 heart attacks in a 3 day period in 2002.  At that time, I was in excellent physical shape and I exercised everyday. There was no pain in the chest, no tingling or pain in my arm or shoulder - no pain of any kind. I simply felt pressure - at first a light pressure in the center of my chest, then it felt like someone was sitting on my chest.  It made it hard to get a good breath. I had the sensation that I needed cold water or cold air on my face so I could breathe.

Everyone does not have the same textbook symptoms, so if you feel  something unusual in your chest, or with your breathing, get your azz to the ER and get checked. And take an aspirin ASAP - it can help if you are havig a heart attack - may even save your life.

Regarding aspirin: if you have heart problems, keep children's aspirin around the house. The medical protocol I follow says I give you 324 mg of aspirin, to be immediately chewed and swallowed. That's 4 childrens aspirin. You could chew and swallow adult aspirin, but the taste will keep you from ever doing that again in the future   If you are having a cardiac event and take the aspirin on your own, be sure to tell the ambulance crew when they show up.

Unrelated to cardiac, but also another good tip for the medicine cabinet: if someone in the house is subject to anaphylactic allergic reactions, keep a bottle of children's liquid Benadryl. They should take about a double shotglass full following the use of their home epinephrine pen. Once again, let the EMTs know what and how much.

Chewing the aspirin and using the liquid benadryl gets both into the bloodstream much faster than taking pills or tablets as intended.

 Thanks gang, and Boner I could've googled it myself I wanted personal stories haha. But thanks nonetheless. The reason why a 21 year old kid is asking this question is because I've been having some acromioclavicular discomfort lately and I don't really know what the cause is. I don't lift heavy items, or use that arm (left arm) to do the....well you know what. So I just don't know, I hope it goes away though. The acromioclavicular joint is essentially the shoulder is what I'm trying to say haha. But it's not the shoulder it's where the clavicle (collarbone) meets the shoulder. I dunno, we'll see what happens. Maybe it's a weird heart attack? Who knows. Hopefully not, but w/e I'll take it as it comes.

Long story short: if you're not having respiratory problems, or the pain intensity does not vary with exercise unrelated to the joint (say, a fast walk), it's probably not a heart problem.

Cool....some google, some don't. Just trying to be helpful. I spent 2 days in ICU about a year out from WLS after my left arm went numb and I experienced chest pains. Turned out not to be a heart attack but they could never tell me what happened. Prior to WLS, I would have ignored the symptoms but now it's all about, "if in doubt check it out."
 
Boner