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Topics: Health
Britt Jones
Symptoms of a heart attack can be difficult to recognise, but understanding what’s happening to your body even up to one month before it happens could be enough for you to seek treatment sooner.
According to the British Heart Foundation, around 100,000 heart attack hospital admissions are recorded each year, making it a scarily common occurrence.
Even though it is a risk factor that many live with, a lot more people have no idea what the symptoms of a heart attack looks like.
While heart attacks may look like a sudden thing that just happens, it can actually be in the works for months, weeks, and days before it occurs.
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Here’s what you need to know.
Symptoms of a heart attack have the ability to develop over a period of time.
Now, it could feel like unexplained chest pain, or it could be other not-so-common things.
For example, a 2023 study of 242 people who were being treated for a heart attack in Pakistan found that 41.3 per cent of participants had these symptoms.
The most prodromal symptoms they found were: Chest pains, chest heaviness, shortness of breath, heart palpitations, a burning feeling in the chest, sleep issues, and fatigue.
They also found that people who had suffered from a heart attack due to a partial blockage tended to report more symptoms in the week before the heart attack.
However, those who had a heart attack because of a total blocked artery reported more symptoms in the month in advance.
A 2023 review of studies found that women tend to experience more prodromal symptoms than men.
While 70 per cent of heart attacks are experienced by men, women are allegedly more likely to sue within one year of having one.
Women are also more likely to develop symptoms that seem out of the norm of heart attacks.
The same researchers found that over 50 per cent of women had sleeping issues within a month leading up to their attack, while 32 per cent of men said the same.
A 2022 study found that chest pain was the most common of all prodromal symptom in both genders, with 93.9 percent of men experiencing it and 94.4 per cent of women.
However, women experience additional symptoms, such as anxiety, shortness of breath, back or jaw pain, nausea, vomiting, and again, sleep issues.
It’s essential to seek help immediately if you are experiencing any symptom related to heart attacks such as shortness of breath and chest pain.
Seeing someone regarding these symptoms could dramatically lower your risk of having a heart attack, or at least provide you with the necessary treatment as soon as possible.
A heart attack is a medical emergency. Call 999 and ask for an ambulance if you suspect a heart attack.