Chest Pain
Chest pain may be grave and you should always seek urgent medical help. Chest pain may be reasoned by poor blood run to the heart leading to angina or by an abrupt blockage in the coronary arteries resulting in a heart attack. However, there are other possible reasons of chest pain such as dyspepsia and muscle strain. Aside from the heart, the many parts of the chest that can reason chest pain include the lungs, oesophagus (gullet), muscle, bone and skin.
Because of the multipart system of nerves in the body, the reason of the chest pain may come from elsewhere in the body, such as the stomach. If in doubt about the reason of your chest pain, call an ambulance.
Symptoms of a heart attack
Symptoms of a heart attack include:
- Severe crushing pain in the centre of your chest or behind the breastbone. You may feel this as a squeezing, tightening, choking or heavy pressure feeling.
- Pain may spread to the shoulders, arms, neck, throat or jaw.
- Sweating.
- Feeling anxious, dizzy or unwell.
- A sick feeling in the stomach.
- Being short of breath.
- Symptoms that often last 10 to 15 minutes or more.
Diagnosis Methods
- ECG - electrical tracing of the heart activity.
- Blood tests - to measure markers from the heart and other organs.
- Chest x-ray - to look at the lungs, heart and major blood vessels of the chest.
- If angina is suspected - further tests may be needed to check the state of the blood vessels that supply the heart. An exercise stress test may be arranged. You may be referred to a cardiologist (heart doctor) for more tests.
- Other tests - it is not always easy to diagnose the cause of chest pain. Your doctor may need to see you more than once to be sure, and further tests may be needed.
Heart Disease risk factors
The risk factors for heart disease include:
- Smoking
- Lack of exercise
- High blood pressure
- Obesity
- High cholesterol
- Diabetes
- Family history of heart disease
- Gender, since males are at greater risk than females
- Age, since the risk increases as we get older.
