Could You Have a Heart Attack Without Knowing
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En español | Despite its depiction in the movies, a eye attack doesn't always produce pain or force per unit area so intense it causes a person to clutch their chest and plummet to the flooring. Most people who have a middle set on feel a much less dramatic version. And some accept no symptoms at all — or symptoms that are so subtle they're mistaken for something else entirely.
These so-called silent center attacks account for virtually 20 per centum of all heart attacks, co-ordinate to the American Middle Association. Some experts gauge that number is even higher — closer to 50 percent.
What is a silent heart attack?
A heart attack happens when the arteries that carry blood to the middle get blocked, thereby depriving the centre muscle of oxygen and nutrients. If a person having a center attack feels pain or pressure, information technology's because of this blockage, says Eduardo Marban, M.D., executive director of the Smidt Heart Establish at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.
Symptoms of a silent middle attack
Few people actually exhibit no symptoms. But signs of a heart assail can be muted or confused with other conditions. Here's what to wait out for:
- Shortness of jiff
- Weakness or fatigue
- A general feeling of unease or discomfort
- Sweating
- Nausea or vomiting
- Lightheadedness or dizziness
- Balmy pain in the throat or chest
- Pain in the back or arms, like a sprained or pulled muscle
The same thing happens during a silent heart attack — blocked arteries make it then that oxygen-rich claret can't reach the heart. The only difference is the problem goes unnoticed. "It's not necessarily that there were no symptoms; it may only exist that the patient didn't recognize them every bit middle symptoms and wasn't concerned," Marban says.
For case, information technology's non uncommon for silent heart attacks to be written off as indigestion, a sprained or strained musculus, fatigue, or "just feeling run-downwardly," Marban says.
People who after realize they've had a silent heart assail may likewise recall experiencing shortness of breath at the time, or a full general country of discomfort that led to a nighttime of lost sleep, says Robert Lager, Yard.D., an interventional cardiologist at MedStar Washington Infirmary Center in Washington, D.C. Nausea, sweating, dizziness and an overall feeling of unease are also signs of a silent heart attack.
If you experience any of these symptoms, "don't sit down around and wonder" what could be incorrect. "Fourth dimension is muscle," Lager says, referring to the damage that decreased blood flow can inflict on the heart. "The longer one waits to get evaluated, the more likely that there will be irreversible damage."
That said, some people truly experience no symptoms — understated or otherwise — when they have a heart attack. Diabetics who have nerve issues that interfere with hurting signals (called neuropathy), for case, are at higher risk for having a literal silent eye assault, Lager says. Women and older adults are also more probable to take an consequence without warning signs.
Is information technology a heart attack … or something else?
Silent eye attacks don't but fool patients; they can be misdiagnosed in health care settings, besides. Shortness of breath may be mistaken for a pulmonary problem, for instance. And pain in the shoulder or arm can be misdiagnosed as an orthopedic issue. "So there are lots of dissimilar forms of symptoms that are referred pain from the centre that can exist very disruptive and sometimes tin be misleading," Lager says.
1 way to tell if the symptoms you're experiencing are due to a centre assault or another condition is to know that the warning signs of center trouble are "non positional," Lager says. This ways that the sprain-similar hurting in your cervix and arm won't get amend if you stretch it or milk shake it out. And shortness of jiff or sweating won't subside if you lot take it easy and lie down.
"That'south a really good rule of thumb," Lager says. "If you're not certain if you're having a symptom, meet if you can dispense it in some fashion. Can you press on the breast? Tin you change your position? Can you stand up up or sit downward? Does information technology brand a difference, positionally? Because the heart has no gyroscope; it doesn't know where it is in space. And information technology doesn't matter if y'all put the heart upside downwardly or correct side up, it'southward going to give you the same signals if it'due south in trouble."
Some other thing to go along in listen: Any symptom that results from the loss of oxygen to the eye will mostly get worse if you increase demand on the heart. "And then if someone has chest discomfort at residue and gets up and walks effectually, you lot're increasing the centre's demand for oxygen, so the symptoms usually volition go worse if information technology's a heart issue," Lager says.
The risks factors for silent centre attacks are the same every bit those for a heart assault with symptoms. The almost mutual include:
- Age (for men, 45 and older; for women, 55 and older)
- Diabetes
- Backlog weight
- High claret pressure
- High cholesterol
- Lack of exercise
- Prior eye attack
- Tobacco use
- A family unit history of heart disease
The dangers of having a eye attack and not knowing
Many people who take had a silent eye assail find out about it after the fact — sometimes months or years later — usually during a routine electrocardiogram, or EKG. Symptoms that ascend afterwards tin also bring patients in to see a health care provider. Lager says people who have suffered a silent centre attack may notice a faster centre rate or increased exercise intolerance, for example.
Usually when someone finds out they had a silent eye attack, the damage has already been done. But identifying a past heart attack tin help you and your md mitigate risks for future cardiac events. Afterward all, a silent eye assault can increment risk of heart failure by 35 percent, i written report shows. It also increases the likelihood of sudden death, stroke and having another heart attack.
Dangerous heart arrhythmias are some other business concern your doctor may monitor for if you had an undetected center set on in the by. These tin develop when parts of the eye musculus are scarred from the loss of blood. And another worry: Because "our blood gets thicker under stress," Lager says, blood clots are also more probable to crop up after yous've had a eye attack.
"Once the diagnosis is made, either of a recognized eye set on or a silent center attack, everything is put into a higher take a chance category in terms of the complications that can ensue," Marban says. "So it's non something that we should simply consider a curiosity and practise nothing about. … Detecting a center assault and acknowledging it is the first step towards putting the patient back on the kind of effective therapy that we know is helpful."
Don't ignore out-of-the-blue problems
The take-habitation bulletin, Lager says, is to pay attention to a change in patterns in your torso.
"If you're someone who occasionally has some chest discomfort that'due south mild, transient and occurs in certain predictable patterns, then it's non about the same equally someone who has new symptoms never felt earlier," he says.
And if you're prone to indigestion and just ate a spicy meal, the burning feeling in your chest is likely heartburn. But if it comes on out of the blue and the symptoms get worse, peculiarly as you walk around or practice, "that's a existent alarm sign that it'due south non gastrointestinal," Lager says.
Source: https://www.aarp.org/health/conditions-treatments/info-2021/silent-heart-attack.html
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