What is the difference between a woman’s heart attack and a man’s?
Unlike men, women often do not experience the classic symptoms of a heart attack. Rather, the particularly unspecific signs become noticeable. A heart attack is often accompanied by nausea and vomiting.
Stomach ache or general pain in the upper abdomen are also possible symptoms. Men often experience severe pain or a stabbing sensation in the heart area. Others report a feeling of tightness or pressure on the chest.
Women, on the other hand, are more likely to experience shortness of breath and shortness of breath. If women feel a twinge, it is usually not in the chest area. Instead, it radiates into the arms, especially the left arm or between the shoulder blades into the back. There can also be complaints in the neck and jaw area. Recurrent dizziness, fainting spells and fatigue can also be symptoms of a heart attack and are more often found in women without other signs of a heart attack.
What is the course of the heart attack in women?
Unspecific signs such as nausea and vomiting often occur days to weeks before a heart attack, but do not allow any conclusions to be drawn about the actual occurrence of the infarct. If the symptoms last for more than 5 minutes, a heart attack should be considered. Persistent symptoms lasting up to 30 minutes are possible.
Usually the heart attack begins with sudden strong pain/prick in the chest. This is accompanied by a feeling of tightness and pressure. In addition, a state of mortal fear often occurs.
The person concerned suffers from drops of sweat on the forehead and breathing suddenly becomes difficult. Often the person collapses and faints. The heart starts beating irregularly, therefore the patients often have to be resuscitated (reanimated).
Since every minute counts during the time of a heart attack, an ambulance should be informed early if there are even slight signs. Because within the first 2 hours after the onset of the infarction, the further prognosis for acute and long-term consequences is decided. If the heart muscle cells are damaged due to reduced blood flow, various proteins and enzymes in the cells enter the bloodstream.
Since these should not normally be present in the blood or only in small quantities, they can be determined by simple blood sampling to diagnose a heart attack. The protein “cardiac troponin” and the enzyme “CK-MB” are of particular importance in this context, although they have recently lost their importance. In addition, at least one of three further criteria must be fulfilled in order to diagnose a heart attack.
These criteria include changes in the ECG typical of a heart attack, the typical chest pain or a recent coronary artery surgery. The diagnosis is not always unproblematic. For example, the characteristic blood values of the above-mentioned myocardial infarction markers only rise after a few hours.
The most important diagnostic tool in the first few hours is therefore still the symptoms described by the patient in combination with typical ECG changes, which are particularly valuable because an electrocardiogram is already being taken by an ambulance if a heart attack is suspected. If this is conspicuous, a medical removal of the vascular constriction can sometimes be started during the drive to the clinic. You can find additional information here: Diagnosis of a myocardial infarction
