What are the signs of a heart attack and how should you react?
The signs of a heart attack in the typical classical case are symptoms of chest oppression - chest tightness, typically in the middle of the chest. This chest tightness or pain can radiate up towards the chin or up towards the earlobe or, as is often described, down towards the left arm and even down the right arm. The pain is a constant pain and within the first 10 or 15 minutes will usually not cause any damage to the heart. However, if prolonged, it will certainly cause irreversible damage to the heart, which is what we call a heart attack or the myocardial infraction. There are a number of other heart attack features which the patient may feel and that is that the pain is severe and that they may feel the sense of impending doom. This is something described in the older books, really. However, I sometimes see in patients, even nowadays, that they get the sensation that they are about to die. That is a heart attack symptom that is very worrying to the patient and obviously irrelevant of whether they are having the heart attack or not warrants immediate treatment. I think it is important that we try to avoid heart attack, and therefore chest pain of whatever sorts needs consultation with the doctor, particularly if it is central and if it is associated with exercises, or if it is present in cold weather or if it appears after heavy meals. All of these could indicate that the pain could be angina. If the patient has angina we can prevent him from having heart attack and therefore prevent any kind of heart damage. The patient would therefore go back to leading a perfectly normal life style.
