Every year, more than 700,000 Americans have a heart attack, and as a cardiologist, I see a lot of them. To increase your chances of surviving an attack, it’s important to know the symptoms, the best way to get help, and what not to do.
Key signs of a heart attack
Key signs of a heart attack include pain, pressure, or dullness in your chest, jaw and/or arm pain, acute back pain that happens suddenly, and/or unusual nausea. If you have diabetes or are female, you may not experience classic chest pain. You’re more likely to have jaw pain and nausea.
If you ever experience these symptoms, do not waste precious time doing one or any of these three things.
- Please don’t go to Dr. Google to try to figure out what’s happening to you. If it enters your mind, “I think this might be a heart attack,” you need to get to the emergency room.
- Don’t drive yourself to the emergency room. Either call 911 (that’s what it’s there for) or have a family member, friend or neighbor drive you there. You don’t want to be in a car if you’re having a heart attack. You want to be with personnel who can treat you. Also, you risk blacking out in the car and hurting yourself or others.
- Don’t self-medicate with a decongestant or an antihistamine, thinking you have a cold. The chest pressure, fatigue and shortness of breath can be mistaken for congestion related to a cold. They can increase your blood pressure and make your heart work harder, which releases more stress hormones. If you take anything, reach for two baby aspirins and chew them.
