Some symptoms of a heart attack are universal. Chest pain and sweating are two examples. But in women, these universal symptoms and others may go unnoticed. This happens because so many of the symptoms women experience aren't experienced by men and can be easily attributed to other causes. Food poisoning, pregnancy, indigestion, and many other health conditions and situations can offer similar symptoms and tend to be more common. Many women may also pass off or ignore minor symptoms when they shouldn’t. What exactly should women be looking for then? They should look for these symptoms, and if they notice multiple symptoms, get medical attention right away. Quick response is the most important thing to beating a heart attack.
Women may feel anxiety for many reasons. Anxiety that crops up for no apparent reason, however, could be an indication of a heart attack. Both heart attacks and anxiety attacks can cause chest pain, so it can be very difficult to distinguish between the two. In the early stages of a heart attack, this anxiety can be a feeling of imminent death. Even if there's no chest pain, if you feel anxiety that you can't connect to a reason combined with other symptoms, it's a good idea to call your doctor.
Sometimes the chest pain isn't in the upper part of the chest where the heart is. It may also appear in the upper abdomen and feel more like stomach pain or even simple indigestion. In this case, it won't feel like the tight, burning, or pressure kind of pain you might expect but more a feeling of heaviness or discomfort. It's very easy to mistake this for a simple stomach ache or indigestion, so if you have other symptoms or are at risk for heart attack, it's important not to dismiss this symptom.
Feeling as if you want to vomit or actually vomiting are both signs that can be attributed to many other health conditions women face, including pregnancy, severe menstrual cramps and food poisoning. This makes it such a general symptom that it can be easily dismissed as nothing. Sometimes nausea or vomiting is the result of the severe pain of a heart attack. If you're at risk for a heart attack, it's important to evaluate yourself carefully and identify any other symptoms that might be present with your nausea or vomiting before ignoring this symptom.
Women often feel pain in their left leg or arm, the left side of their jaw or between their shoulder blades on their back when having a heart attack. This is a symptom that is unique to women, as men don't generally feel this pain. The uniqueness to women is one reason it might be overlooked as a symptom of a heart attack. While this pain is typically on the left side, it can also occur in the right arm.
Shortness of breath is associated with asthma, COPD, anxiety and a host of other health conditions. So it's especially easy to overlook this symptom, especially if you already have a health condition that gives you shortness of breath. This is why it's important to pay careful attention to any other symptoms you may have, shortness of breath that feels worse or different, or if it doesn't respond to your usual treatments. If it happens in conjunction with heart palpitations, with or without chest pain, you should call 911 or go to the emergency room immediately.
Many people aren't even sure what a heart palpitation is, much less when they're having one. Heart palpitations are heartbeats that are either abnormally fast or irregular. They're also a symptom that can appear with anxiety, asthma, and hyperthyroidism, among other health conditions. Heart palpitations along with shortness of breath and/or chest pain should be a cue to seek medical attention immediately.
