The First Warning Signs Of A Heart Attack

The first warning signs of a possible heart attack need not be chest pains. These warning signs usually vary for each individual. Some of the possible symptoms of a heart attack could include shortness of breath, weakness, dizziness or numbness in the limbs.

A heart attack usually occurs suddenly and can occur any time. Even so, most patients suffering from heart attack usually will experience various warning symptoms in advance. A heart attack can occur suddenly without any warning signs and hence result in sudden cardiac death or be preceded by angina for days before an attack.

The most common and vital sign of a possible heart attack is chest discomfort, which would include chest pain. There are some patients who experience greater chest pain than others as the intensity of the chest discomfort varies tremendously among heart attack sufferers. Patients might feel a sensation of pressure or fullness or a squeezing pain in the chest that lasts for more than a dew minutes. These chest pains might even spread to the shoulder, arm, back and sometimes even to the jaws and teeth.

Chest pains frequently occur behind the breastbone and may spread to the left arms, shoulder, jaw, teeth or neck. Occasionally it may radiate to the right arm or right shoulder as numbness sensation instead of an outright pain. Sometimes such discomfort may be felt in much lower locations than usual.

Marked weakness with or without chest pain is another common sign of heart attack. Among many cases of massive heart attack, the foregoing symptoms occur simultaneously. Sudden cardiac death usually occurs when the heart muscle damage is very large and multiple coronary arteries are blocked. Even after a recovery from a heart attack for these patients, there will still be a range of complications present

Seeking medical attention immediately is extremely is important as 15% of heart attack victims die suddenly within the first hour after the onset of the symptoms. Delaying recognition and obtaining urgent medical treatment for a heart attack can trigger serious complications and even result in death in many cases.