If I ask you to picture someone having a heart attack, what comes to mind?
If you’re like most of us, you see an overweight out-of-shape, 55+ man. He’s gasping, clutching his chest and dropping to the ground like a sack of potatoes. Because, let’s face it, that’s what we’ve all been taught to see.
But the truth is the number one killer of women in the United States isn’t Alzheimer’s. It’s not diabetes. And it isn’t even breast cancer. Heart disease kills more women every year in the US than ANY other illness.
And heart attacks are often deadlier in women than in guys like the one we pictured earlier. The reason why? Women aren’t taught to even consider that they could be having one.
Women tend to dismiss symptoms. They convince themselves they’re just feeling a bit under the weather, coming down with the flu or simply “getting older.”
50% had zero clue about their heart attack risk
In fact in a recent study—published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology—out of 3,500 women who had a heart attack HALF didn’t have a clue they were facing any heart risks. Yet virtually all of them had at least one established risk factor.
Even worse, two-thirds of them had THREE or more risk factors!
And these were normal, everyday women… wives, mothers, sisters, friends… who led normal everyday lives including seeing a doctor from time to time. Yet a huge number of them apparently hadn’t ever been warned they were at risk.
Most of us tend to believe that a heart attack is always a dramatic event, but symptoms can be much more subtle than we expect. And women, who often have no idea they’re even at risk in the first place, tend to dismiss their own symptoms, especially when chest pain isn’t among them.
Women less likely than men to get life-saving procedure
I’ll have more on those symptoms in just a moment, but first let’s take a look at the findings of another recent shocking study that finds that it’s not only women dismissing their own symptoms, but it’s also the very people that are entrusted to save our lives in an emergency.
The new research revealed that women under 60 who end up in the hospital because of the deadliest type of heart attack—one that’s caused by a complete blockage of blood flow to the heart—are less likely than men to get the procedure they need to restore the blood flow and save their lives.
Meaning that ER and hospital professionals… the doctors and nurses who have been trained to quickly diagnose and treat us in a life-and-death situation like a heart attack… are ALSO blind to the risks women face, and the symptoms that indicate they’re in the MIDDLE of a massive heart attack.
That’s not just terrifying, it’s downright deadly.
And it means we’re going to have to take charge here and educate ourselves about heart attack warning signs so we can protect our own life, or the life of someone we love.
7 heart attack warning signs that could SAVE your life!
You already know the classic heart attack warning sign that we’ve all been taught to expect from movies and television… the chest clutching pain we all pictured earlier.
But it’s the lesser known signs I want you to commit to memory, because those are the ones that could literally save your life one day.
| 7 Heart Attack Warning Signs You Should NEVER Ignore! |
|---|
| 1. cold sweats |
| 2. sudden hot flashes |
| 3. weakness |
| 4. shortness of breath |
| 5. pain down the left arm |
| 6. pain in the left shoulder |
| 7. pain in your jaw |
If you have ANY of these heart attack warning signs, even if they don’t seem like a big deal, get help fast. This isn’t a time to hesitate!
And refuse to be the next victim of ER incompetence. .If you’re not being taken seriously INSIST on having a second and even a third opinion. It could make the difference between you leaving the hospital on your own two feet or in a wooden box.
References:
J Am Coll Cardiol. 2015;66(18):1949-1957. doi:10.1016/j.jacc.2015.08.859
J Am Coll Cardiol. 2015;66(18):1961-1972. doi:10.1016/j.jacc.2015.08.865
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Tawanna Jones says
May 3, 2016 at 3:03 pmI FOUND THIS ARTICLE VERY INFORMATIVE, BECAUSE I HAVE A HEART CONDITION IN WHICH I NOW HAVE A PACE MAKER, BUT I HAVE ANXIETY A LOT AND I’M SCARED THAT I WILL HAVE A HEART ATTACK, SO NOW I AT LEAST I KNOW SOME SIGNS THAT I DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT, THANK YOU!
Healthier Talk says
May 3, 2016 at 3:44 pmHi Tawanna,
Thanks so much for your comment. We’re sorry to hear about your anxiety, but glad our article could help put some of your fears to rest.
Check out our article “Restore your sense of calm & relieve anxiety without drugs,” you might find some good tips to talk over with your doctor.
Best of luck!
–The Healthier Talk Team
Michael says
September 7, 2016 at 3:45 pmDo you know that all that may have some benefits? However, there is such very bad mental disease called Hypochondria and our very busy hospital ERs are full of people with this type of the disease. We all have to live healthy life eating the best healthy food we can find and do exercises but all the symptoms you have described usually come from all other none-life threating sources like stomach spasms, gases, arthritis and anxiety/panic attacks. I read the statistics that 98% of people who thought they were having a heart attack, had nothing to worry about because their symptoms were very common especially most of our population tends to overeat on a junk food or being out of physical shape and just did some work around the house that has strained some their muscles.
I believe in our destinies and if your time came to die, there was nothing would help you regardless of all the warnings you might had or not period.