Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Recognising female Heart Attack symptoms

According to a study of women's early heart attack signs, women have more unrecognised heart attacks than men and are more likely to be, 'mistakenly diagnosed and discharged from emergency departments'

By Katherine Kam

Recently, Merle Rose, a woman in London, experienced what some doctors call 'female heart attack symptoms;' a feeling of indigestion and extreme fatigue, nausea, vomiting and fainting.

But she never had a chest pain, a typical male heart attack sign. When she got to the emergency room, doctors couldn't find any sign of heart attack.

As Rose's experience shows, many doctors and women themselves still don't realise that female heart attack symptoms can look very different than those of men. In fact, according to a study of women's early heart attack signs, women have more unrecognised heart attacks than men and are more likely to be, 'mistakenly diagnosed and discharged from emergency departments'.

Female Heart Attack Symptoms: What are They?

These chest-related heart attack signs often appear in men, and many women get them too:

• Pressure, fullness or a squeezing pain in the center of the chest, which may spread to the neck, shoulder or jaw,

• chest discomfort with light-headedness, fainting, sweating, nausea or shortness of breath.

But many women don't have chest pain. In the study on early female heart attack symptoms, researchers found that during a heart attack, 43 percent of the 515 women studied had no 'acute chest pain', a hallmark symptom in men.

Nevertheless, the study cited evidence that many emergency room doctors still look mainly for chest pain. Only a minority check for the other types of symptoms that women tend to develop. As a result, doctors may miss heart attacks in women.

"Although women can have chest tightness as a symptom of a heart attack, it's also important for women to recognise that might not be their symptom," says Nieca Goldberg, a Cardiologist and Chief of Women's Cardiac Care, New York City. Women commonly have symptoms of shortness of breath, unexplained fatigue, or pressure in the lower chest, so they easily mistake it as a stomach ailment.

In the study, common female heart attack symptoms include:

• shortness of breath (57.9 percent)

• weakness (54.8 percent)

• unusual fatigue (42.9 percent)

Women also have these symptoms:

• nausea

• dizziness

• lower chest discomfort

• upper abdominal pressure or discomfort that may feel like indigestion

• back pain

Female Heart Attack Symptoms: Warning of Heart Attack

In the weeks preceding an actual heart attack, some of these symptoms may even appear as early warning signs, according to the study.

Goldberg, who is familiar with the study, says, "about six weeks before the actual heart attack, women are more likely to experience shortness of breath, unexplained fatigue or stomach pain as an early warning sign that they might have a blocked artery."

If you get early warning signs, call your doctor and talk about the possibility of heart disease. "That's the time to come in for an evaluation," says Goldberg.

On the day of a heart attack, these symptoms can strike without any provocation; for example, shortness of breath may come without physical activity. Symptoms can appear during rest or even awaken a woman from sleep, and they're much worse, he added. They just come on and they're severe.

Female Heart Attack Symptoms:

If you believe you're having heart attack symptoms, call right away for an ambulance to take you to the emergency room. Wait no more than 5 minutes.

Women often worry about being embarrassed if they're not having a heart attack after all. But embarrassment will pass without causing long-term damage; a heart attack may not.

"This delay could have been fatal," Goldberg says.

Emergency medical personnel can start treatment, such as oxygen, heart medication, and pain relievers, as soon as patient arrives, says Mohamud Daya, An Associate Professor, Emergency Services, Oregon Health and Science University.

One more compelling reason to go by ambulance: "When you come into the emergency room with the (cardiac) monitor hooked up, you're really taken seriously," Goldberg says.

When you reach the emergency room, describe your symptoms, but don't offer your own conclusions, Goldberg says. You should just tell the doctor how you feel. Don't interpret it for them."

If it doesn't occur to the emergency room doctor to check for heart attack, be bold. Goldberg tells women to say outright: "I think I'm having a heart attack." Because many doctors still don't recognise that women's symptoms differ, they may mistake them for arthritis, pulled muscles, indigestion, gastrointestinal problems, or even anxiety and hypochondria.

In short, female heart attack symptoms may be missed and dismissed. When one of Goldberg's patients entered the emergency room with such symptoms, doctors gave her antacids. Of course, stomach pain could prove to be nothing more than a bad case of gastrointestinal illness. "But what I tell all my patients is, it's best to check out your heart first because a potential heart attack is life-threatening," she says.

So we can come into the conclusion that women heart attack symptoms can at times completely be differed than the men heart attack symptoms. It's just one has to be more attentive and alert in the situation, especially if a woman is suffering from such type of life taking disease.

Special care, exercises and a healthy diet are the keys for one to be fit throughout his/her life. We all must consider our health first and all the rest comes as the secondary.

--www.webmd.com

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