Symptoms of a heart attack!!

[Tuck]

While Pesoto and I were recently exchanging e-mails, we were talking about various topics that might be of interest to others, and we thought this could possibly save your life.

What are the symptoms of a heart attack? Well, the classic one...feels like an elephant sitting on your chest, and tingling and numbness down your left arm...........

mine was not like that. In my case, I felt like I had indigestion smack dab in the middle of my chest, right on my sternum, and tingling and numbness down my RIGHT arm.  Evelyn kept telling me we should call 911, and I kept saying it will go away..........

previous signs....blood pressure........watch this one very close folks....

my blood pressure had been very high a few weeks before my attack. We all know that a normal,pressure should be around 120 over 80, somewhere in that ball park.

I was checking my BP almost daily, and for you in the medical field, you will realize how high it was....my systolic pressure was anywhere between 150 up to 178, but my diastolic pressure was jumping from 95, and even got as high as 115, so we are talking a bp of 178/115...DANGEROUS!!

Bottom point...I ignored it, thought everything was going to be ok.  WRONG!!  Now after at least 3 attacks, 2 operations, and the inserting of 6 stents, I am ok, still mending of course, but had to have an eye opener.

People keep telling me it is good to see me, I respond with it is good to be seen........

Folks, pay attention to the signals your body is giving you..........

Responses of course welcome, and if you have had weird symptoms or have experienced a heart attack, let us know..

[Bingo]

I think one of the scariest points about those symptoms, minus the blood pressure --- what WERE you thinking! -- is that we have same symptoms in terms of other ailments too.

For women, jaw discomfort, back and neck discomfort, arm heaviness and tingling, so many symptoms of a heart attack and I have had them all. Yet I have frequent EKG's and echos because of a leaking valve and bundle branch block disorder and I have not had a heart attack.  I am afraid I am using that knowledge as a cushion to ignore the symptoms whenever they occur. I don't take my blood pressure except once in awhile except when I am at the doc's office every three months. I know I have esophagus spasms caused by acid reflux and medications. So i try to explain away the fullness, the aching, and so far it has gone away. Those of you who are long timers on this site know i recently had a stress test and feel it went well but I don't have any reports yet.  I think they would have contacted me if it showed the need for immediate treatment.

We have Pesoto and Tuck who have fought those heart attack wars and need to listen to them and listen to our bodies telling us there is a problem.

[pesoto74]

Bingo, I know what you mean about writting things off as being other symptoms.  I have had some trouble with my upper-back for sometime and when I first started having the symptoms of the heart attack that is what I thought it was.  For some reason since I have had the heart attack those back symptoms seem to have gotten worse.  I have had to go in several times to have things checked out because of that.  The aggravating thing is that I have these symptoms and they check it and find it is not the heart.  Still I am having considerable pain and discomfort at times from some source.  Yet it has taken months of my telling various doctors that maybe my back needs to be checked out to get them to start doing anything.  It is strange I come in with a fairly major pain.  They check and see it isn't the heart and are satisfied that they don't need to do anything else.  Finally a couple of months ago they took some x-rays and found some arthritis in my upper-back.  The location is at the point where I have most of the pain.  So they send me in for some physical therapy which did help quite a bit.   Still it seems like every ten days are so I have a flare-up.  So finally my doctor is sending me to the spine clinic at Carle.  It seems like this is something that they should have done months ago.

Anyway whenever this pain comes up it is hard not to wonder if it could be the heart.  I think that I have become more discriminating in examining the pain, however it is always a debate that goes on in my head for a while.  Fortunately, I have had my heart checked out enough in the past several months that it now appears to be in good shape.  I also have consistently had good blood pressure readings.  So right now the odds are fairly low of it being a heart problem.  Still it is a pain in the ass to deal with.

[Bingo]

Absolutely!

[Oops Did I Do That]

Do these symptoms also mimic that of a stroke?Or are stroke symptoms different?

[pesoto74]

Fortunately, I have never had a stroke so I can't speak from personal experience.  From what I have heard from people who have had them it seems like a lot of the symptoms include things like numbness in part of the body, dizzyness, and confusion. 

[Nan]

Here is a link to some basic information about signs and symptoms of cardiac problems and stroke.

http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=3053

[Oops Did I Do That]

Thank you Nan

[Guardian Angel]

I think the only thing that mimics is the Gall Bladder.  It can make you think you are having an heart attack, that is why it's called the great pretender......

[Bingo]

that happened to me about ten years ago. I was sure it was a heart attack.  Chinese food can do the same thing.

[pesoto74]

Acid reflux a lot of times can give some of the symptoms of a heart attack.  Especially if it makes the Esophagus spasm. 

[Guardian Angel]

Lot's of foods I eat manage to set my gall bladder off.  I was miserable last night after eating a Pasta House salad......

[Bingo]

About 25 years ago, bean sprouts nearly killed my mother in law one holiday.  She was hiding out in an upstairs bathroom and out of consideration for the kids, she sprinkled some baby powder on the carpeting since there was no spray room freshner in that bathroom for the girls.  

Our middle daughter kept checking on grandma. Finally she got the bathroom to herself. When I went upstairs to put them to bed the bathroom was a white fog and we couldn't breathe in there or the room that two of the girls shared.  L had decided if Grandma could do it, so could she. She had powdered both rooms to the point of suffocation!

Lucky grandma had emergency gall bladder surgery about 3 in the morning. We were sleeping with windows open in Dec.

[Guardian Angel]

Mine acts up periodically, I just grin and bear it.

[pesoto74]

Anxiety attacks also can make someone think they are having a heart attack.  It is fairly common now-a-days for people who have had a heart attack to be given some kind of anti-anxiety medication.