Heart Attack & Women

I have to admit that although I know that women can have heart attacks, you often only think of men having heart attacks.  It is important to note that women can have heart attacks too.  I personally think that this is going to increase in years to come as women spend more time out of the home working, and trying to take care of their families as well, which results in stress that can damage the heart and its blood vessels.  In this post, I want to give you some information on heart attack & women, and how the symptoms in women can differ from those in men.

Although women can present with the typical signs and symptoms of a heart attack such as chest pain, shortness of breath, sweating, nausea, and lightheadedness,  neck, jaw,  shoulder, and back pain, there still exists the potential to be misdiagnosed upon presentation to an emergency room.  This is because women tend to be more likely than men to have complaints of other symptoms that are not chest-pain related.  It should be noted, though, that women’s most common complaint that signals a heart attack is still chest pain or discomfort.  In some cases, some women may have more generalized complaints of fatigue for no reason or fatigue that just never goes away.

Women can have a heart attack before they are forty years old, especially if they have certain risk factors.  Some of these risk factors include being overweight or obese, smoking, using birth control pills, having uncontrolled diabetes, and lack of exercise.

The most important thing to take away from this is that a heart attack & women are unfortunate possibilities.  So even if you are not experiencing chest pain, do not dismiss the idea that you could be having a heart attack.  It is really important that you get emergency help as quickly as possible.  It’s better to be safe rather than sorry.