Heart Attck Symptoms in Women

Heart attack symptoms are not the same for men and women. Usually people undergoing a heart attack experience heaviness, pain and tightening in the chest. But a lot of women go through a heart attack without feeling this common symptom. The problem is, the patients chance for survival and for a normal life after an attack is dependent on how soon the patient can receive treatment. Experts say, if you can get treatment within an hour, your chance for survival improves by 50%, and 23% if treatment is given within 3 hours.

In this regard, women should be mindful of heart attack signs such as:

* Extreme fatigue – You always feel tired and exhausted but cant explain why. Doing even light tasks can make you feel very tired. It may be similar to the feeling you have when you are coming down with a flu. You may experience this not only during the attack itself but even days before.  

*Heavy sweating - without doing heavy physical activities or exercise

*Nausea – or dizziness, or lightheartedness that could sometimes lead to vomiting. 

*Anxiety – for some reason (it may be unknown at the moment), you sense that something bad is going to happen

*Breathlessness – you feel like you are barely able to catch your breath

*Sleeplessness – you have difficulty sleeping or you wake up in the middle of the night

*Mild Discomfort or pressure in the shoulders, neck, jaw, upper back 

*Stomach pain – a lot of women dismiss it as heartburn or ulcer. 

Heart attacks can happen anytime. But studies reveal that it happens more often during the morning between 6AM and noon. 

What to do when you feel these symptoms:

The first and the most essential thing you should do is to not dismiss these sign. Be sensitive and observant when you start feeling any of the symptoms. If you feel a discomfort in your upper body, especially coupled with other heart attack signs
mentioned above, you have to get checked.  Though you urgently need to go to the hospital, do not drive yourself going there. You could hurt yourself or others in the process. Ask someone else to bring you there or just call an emergency medical responder


Silent Heart Attack and Diabetes

Aside from women, people with type 2 diabetes are at higher risk for experiencing
silent heart attack.This is when you dont feel pain or heavy pressure in the chest but you feel the other milder symptoms such as lightheadedness, breathlessness and nausea. Because of this, it is normal for a silent heart attack to occur without the victim knowing it.

According to Om P. Ganda, M.D., medical director of the Lipid Clinic at the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston and an associate clinical professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. High blood sugar can lead to autonomic nerve damage that reduces the ability to feel pain, including heart-attack pain. Your only symptom might be shortness of breath. And people with diabetes are already at two to three times higher risk for heart disease than people without diabetes, which also increases the chances for a silent heart attack.