Life
Heart attack symptoms you should not ignore
Rapid pulse or heart rate
One little-known symptom that sometimes predates a heart attack is known as ventricular tachycardia, more commonly described as rapid and irregular pulse and heart rate.
During these episodes, which come on suddenly, you feel as if your heart is beating very fast and hard, like you just ran up a hill – except that you have not.
“I’d look down and I could actually see my heart pounding,” one person recalled. It can last just a few seconds or longer; if longer, you may also notice dizziness and weakness.
Some patients confuse these episodes with panic attacks. Rapid pulse and heartbeat that aren’t brought on by exertion always signal an issue to bring to your doctor’s attention.
Heart attacks in older patients, can mimic many other conditions. But an overall theme heard from those whose loved ones suffered heart attacks is that in the days leading up to and after a cardiac event, they “just didn’t seem like themselves.”
A good rule of thumb, experts say, is to watch for clusters of symptoms that come on all at once and aren’t typical of your normal experience. For example, a normally alert, energetic person suddenly begins to have muddled thinking, memory loss, deep fatigue, and a sense of being “out of it.”
The underlying cause could be something as simple as a urinary tract infection, but it could also be a heart attack.
If your body is doing unusual things and you just don’t feel “right,” don’t wait. See a doctor and ask for a thorough check-up.
Flu-like symptoms
Clammy, sweaty skin, along with feeling light-headed, fatigued, and weak, leads some people to believe they are coming down with the flu when, in fact, they are having a heart attack. Even the feeling of heaviness or pressure in the chest – typical of some people’s experience in a heart attack – may be confused with having a chest cold or the flu.
If you experience severe flu-like symptoms that don’t quite add up to the flu (no high temperature, for example), call your doctor to talk it over.
Watch out also for persistent wheezing or chronic coughing that does not resolve itself; that can be a sign of heart disease, experts say. Patients sometimes attribute these symptoms to a cold or flu, asthma, or lung disease when what’s happening is that poor circulation is causing fluid to accumulate in the lungs.
