Know the symptoms of a heart attack
Anne Burgess had been a keen runner, wasn’t overweight and ate a balanced diet with lots of fruit and vegetables. But in 2017, at the age of 57, the retired school teacher who lives in south Birmingham had a heart attack.
“I woke up at half past three in the morning and I just thought what on earth was that. It was just this central chest pain that felt like a huge pressure in the centre of my chest radiating out through my back,” she says.
“I just lay there thinking 'Is it going to go away?' and it didn’t. The pain was going up my arm and into my neck, I was feeling hot and sweaty and I couldn’t breathe properly. I woke my husband and said, I’m really not right and described what I was feeling.
“I got up to try and get dressed for him to take me to A&E and said I can’t breathe properly, please call an ambulance, and they came very quickly and did an ECG. They wouldn’t let me walk anywhere, they carried me down the stairs, and we were blue-lighted to the hospital.”
Anne was kept at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham for a couple of days. After she was discharged the medical team overseeing her care followed up with MRI scans and then an appointment with the consultant who confirmed it was a heart attack, involving a more minor artery.
Heart and circulatory disease, also known as cardiovascular disease (CVD), causes a quarter of all deaths in the UK. It is the largest cause of premature mortality in deprived areas.
There are over 80,000 hospital admissions in England each year for heart attacks, and at least 7 out of 10 people survive. But recognising the symptoms as soon as possible is vital, since the proportion of people who survive can be increased to over 9 out of 10 (94 per cent) for those who reach hospital and receive appropriate treatment.
Symptoms of a heart attack
- chest pain – a sensation of pressure, heaviness, tightness or squeezing across the chest
- pain in other parts of the body – it can feel as if the pain is spreading from your chest to your arms (usually the left arm is affected, but it can affect both arms), jaw, neck, back and upper abdomen – sometimes the pain is in one of these other areas and not in the chest
- feeling lightheaded or dizzy
- sweating
- shortness of breath
- feeling sick (nausea) or being sick (vomiting)
- a feeling of unease
- coughing or wheezing
Roy Gould, 69, is a TV director and lives near Norwich. He only survived his heart attack in 2017 after calling for an ambulance.
“I cooked a late Sunday lunch which I didn’t enjoy and went to bed early with what I thought was indigestion. I had a tightness in my upper chest which I put down to straining myself because I’d been belching a lot,” he says.
“But I woke about 2am and my wife asked if I was alright and I said ‘I’ve got terrible indigestion’. Half an hour later, I sat up and told her, ‘Get the phone, I think I’m having a heart attack’. I don’t know why, but I just knew and I knew I had to have an ambulance.
“My chest felt like it was being crushed and I had a dreadful pain between the shoulder blades – like I was being stabbed - although nothing down my arms.“
He called 999 and when the ambulance arrived, they gave him an ECG before transferring him to hospital.
“At the time I was told it was a minor heart attack in a major artery but about three months later I went back to the consultant for a sign off and was shown pictures of a blockage – I had half a millimetre left in one artery. It wasn’t minor! I think I only survived because I was in that ambulance when I had a major heart attack. I was very lucky.”
While the most common symptom is chest pain, symptoms can vary from person to person. Some people may have other symptoms such as shortness of breath, feeling or being sick and back or jaw pain without any chest pain.
Whilst chest pain can be severe some people only experience moderate discomfort/heaviness/tightness. Some people may only experience minor pain, similar to indigestion. Chest pain can also manifest as tightness or a squeezing across the chest, rather than pain.
Men are more likely to recognise the symptoms of a heart attack, and women may dismiss symptoms. But a woman’s risk of a heart attack increases after the menopause, so it’s really important to take these symptoms seriously.
Despite heart attacks more frequently affecting men, 35,000 women are admitted to hospital following a heart attack each year in the UK – an average of 98 women per day, or four per hour.
The risk of having a heart attack is also increased by smoking, a high fat diet, diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and being overweight or obese.
Making healthy diet and lifestyle choices, taking up routine blood pressure and cholesterol checks and maintaining a healthy weight are among the preventative measures that can be taken.
Peak incidence of heart attacks is in the morning, and there is a 40 per cent higher risk between 6am and noon.
If in doubt, remember these key rules:
- The early signs of a heart attack can vary, the most common include squeezing across the chest, a feeling of unease and a sense that something just isn’t right
- The early symptoms of a heart attack don’t always feel severe
- It can be easy to dismiss the early signs of a heart attack but it’s never too early to call 999 and describe your symptoms
Dr Dawn Adamson, cardiologist and National Specialty Advisor for Heart Disease, NHS England, says: “Often people don’t realise they’re having a heart attack, either because they don’t recognise the early signs, or because they don’t consider them severe enough to trouble the NHS.
“But make no mistake, a heart attack is a medical emergency, and it’s never too early to call 999 and describe your symptoms.”
For more information, visit nhs.uk/heartattack