In this article, we will consider the first signs of a heart attack.
This pathology is a focal ischemic necrosis of the heart muscle, which develops as a result of acute disorders of the coronary circulation. The clinical picture of this condition is characterized by burning, pressing or squeezing pain behind the sternum, extending to the left arm, shoulder blade, collarbone, jaw, as well as shortness of breath, panic, cold sweat. Myocardial infarction is an indication for emergency hospitalization of the patient in cardiological intensive care, and in the absence of medical care, death can occur.
That is why it is so important to recognize the signs of a heart attack in time.
Causes of myocardial infarction
A heart attack is a great threat to human life and a condition when some parts of the heart muscle begin to die. The main cause of necrosis is oxygen starvation or hypoxia, which occurs for various reasons. They can be conditionally divided into two categories. To the firstinclude diseases that in this case can be called the root cause - vascular atherosclerosis, angina pectoris, chronic heart failure and others. Such pathologies lead to an increased need for oxygen in the body, as well as a violation of the transport functions of blood vessels. The second category includes non-specific causes - sports or high physical activity. In such a case, the heart's need for oxygen increases significantly, but it does not always receive it in the right amount. A sedentary lifestyle and various bad habits can also provoke the development of hypoxia.
Signs of a heart attack
Myocardial infarction is very dangerous, because when the first symptoms occur, the patient must be given the right emergency care. Otherwise, he may not wait for the arrival of doctors, because the pathology is often accompanied by cardiogenic shock and heart failure.
The main signs of myocardial infarction in men are:
- Severe pain. Often a person finds it difficult to explain what the nature of the pain syndrome is. He feels in the region of the heart that squeezing pains, then cutting and stabbing, there may be a burning sensation in the sternum. Pathology is characterized by the transition of pain to the left side of the body. It most often spreads to the arm, shoulder, neck, and face. This symptom must be immediately eliminated, otherwise, the risk of developing cardiogenic shock is high. What other signs and symptoms of myocardial infarction are possible?
- Weakness, which is accompanied by pallor of the skin and mucous membranes, the patient has shortness of breath, hemay complain of lack of air.
- Panic and fear - a sharp pain in the heart causes a shock in a person, from which it is necessary to get rid of. Nervous strain in such a case is the worst enemy, provoking complications of a heart attack.
- Cold sweat as a sign of a heart attack. Even if the room is not hot, people often have hot flashes of cold sweat during a heart attack, due to severe drops in blood pressure and interruptions in the heart.
- Tachycardia. Heart palpitations are often observed with heart attacks. The pulse may f alter, increase, or, conversely, slow down.
All of the above conditions are the first signs of myocardial infarction. If the pathology is recognized immediately and the patient is given emergency assistance, many serious consequences can be avoided.
Pain during a heart attack may not be observed at all, in such a case, people do not even suspect that they have suffered a heart attack. The infarction is then determined only on the cardiogram, where you can clearly see the functional changes in the myocardium.
Consider also the signs of a heart attack in women.
Female symptoms
It should be noted that in women the pain syndrome during the development of this pathology is less pronounced. What this is connected with is still unknown to science. Some experts attribute this to a higher pain threshold, while others emphasize that women simply often endure pain and get used to it. But even in this case, first aid must be providednecessarily. A 50-year-old woman may not show signs of a heart attack at all.
If we take into account the characteristics of a woman's body, we can distinguish the symptoms of an acute heart attack that appear long before its occurrence, which makes it possible to prevent this pathology. Among men, such symptoms do not occur, but women, for a certain time before a heart attack, may complain of swelling that can occur in different parts of the body, which is provoked by the accumulation of blood due to disturbances in the cardiovascular system. Also, women often begin to worry about sleep disturbance, which is practically not eliminated with the help of sedatives, walks in the fresh air in the evening, and other activities that are usually taken in cases of insomnia.
Women may complain of abdominal pain because their diaphragm is slightly higher than men's, and heart pain may radiate to the upper abdomen during a heart attack.
Another main symptom and the first sign of myocardial infarction is fatigue, which appears even with minimal exertion, and does not disappear after rest or a long vacation.
Pain as the main symptom
Pain in this pathology is of the same nature as in angina pectoris, however, it differs by a significant duration and, as a rule, a higher intensity. However, there are known cases of heart attacks, accompanied by relatively minor pain or proceeding completely without pain (the so-called "painless" heart attack). It means,that although pain is one of the main first signs of a heart attack, they are not necessarily present. In the event of a similar pathology of the heart, pain occurs in approximately 93% of cases. The first signs of a heart attack in men and women can be very difficult to recognize.
It should be noted that the effect of nitroglycerin provides some information in recognizing a heart attack, since it is known that a normal angina attack after taking this substance, as well as other vasodilators, as a rule, stops after a few minutes, while anginal phenomena in a heart attack after taking nitroglycerin do not disappear. From this it follows that the difference between the occurrence of attacks of "angina pectoris" and the first signs of a heart attack is the reversibility of such pathological processes that lead to the appearance of pain. With "angina pectoris", such processes are of a very short-term nature, and the acute coronary insufficiency provoked by them, as a rule, soon disappears. In myocardial infarction, the changes that cause acutely developing coronary artery insufficiency are irreversible, last for a long time, and only over time can be compensated by other mechanisms.
It is important to be able to distinguish the signs of a heart attack in men over 50 from the symptoms of angina.
The difference between a heart attack and angina
The reason, which in this case plays the main role, is the blood clots formed in the coronary arteries. Myocardial infarction is considered by somespecialists as a result of acute thrombosis of the heart vessels. Such an idea makes it possible to fundamentally distinguish between "angina pectoris", in which thrombosis of the heart vessels does not occur, from myocardial infarction, as a result of persistent blockage of the coronary lumen by thrombotic masses.
Thrombosis of the arteries of the heart, although it is found in a heart attack very often, but in 30% of cases this does not happen. In addition, it can occur much later. Therefore, myocardial infarction cannot be diagnosed as a coronary artery thrombosis. A blood clot is usually not the cause of blockage of its lumen, on the contrary, it is a consequence of it. It also cannot be denied that coronary obstruction can be caused directly by a thrombus. It is obvious that a thrombotic plug, which is formed in a narrowed area of a particular artery or in the area of its prolonged spasm, should aggravate coronary insufficiency to a high degree, turning it into arterial obstruction.
Thus, thrombosis in coronary atherosclerosis is an essential distinguishing feature of a heart attack in men from angina pectoris.
Of great importance in the development of a heart attack is also the degree of atherosclerosis, the formation of atherosclerotic plaques that protrude in the lumen of the coronary vessel and close it. In some cases, there is a blockage of the lumen of the artery with a mushy mass during the destruction of an atherosclerotic plaque, or a hemorrhage provoked by the collapse of atheromatous foci into the walls of the affected artery, when such a hematoma swells the inner layer of the artery wall.
Shortness of breath
Heart attackmyocardium from the moment of its occurrence is often accompanied by symptoms of severe shortness of breath. Pain is usually not accompanied by a similar asthmatic variant of this pathology. The cause of suffocation in a heart attack is an acutely developing insufficiency of the contractile functions of the heart and a sharp decrease in pressure provoked by this, which enhances the general state of hypoxemia. It, in turn, affects the redox property of the myocardium in both parts of the heart. Thus, left ventricular failure can turn into total failure, which, as a rule, aggravates the patient's asthmatic condition. What other signs and symptoms of a heart attack in men and women are possible?
Nervous system
It often happens that the onset of a heart attack is accompanied by a number of negative neuro-cerebral phenomena in the form of dizziness, fainting, a state of excitement, or vice versa, depression of mental activity, vomiting, headache. Sometimes the initial signs of a heart attack are very similar to those that occur with strokes: there is a state of stupor, confusion, and motor functions develop in the form of paresis or paralysis of the limbs. There may be disturbances in the work of the bulbar centers, which is accompanied by a disorder of speech and vision. Such "cerebral" forms of heart attack are often mistaken for a stroke.
This variant of the initial signs of a heart attack is constantly discussed in the medical literature and various explanations are put forward about this. Some authors talk about the coincidence of two isolated exacerbations of atherosclerosis - in the vessels of the brain and heart, which leads to a combination of heart attack and stroke. It is likely that the concomitant formation of blood clots in the coronary and cerebral vessels is of direct importance. Others note the importance of vasomotor disorders, which cover these vessels at the same time and cause their parallel spasm.
Shock and depressurization
Shock and collapse are the initial signs of a heart attack, which often accompany this pathological phenomenon. In this case, there is a significant violation of the functions of the blood supply to the brain, which usually leads to the shutdown of some of its functions. The significance of hypoxia as a result of heart failure is also of no small importance. Brain disturbance can be called reflected or reflex. In the study of the brain of people who died from a heart attack, a number of significant changes were found. Along with the simultaneous development of atherosclerosis of the arteries of the brain and signs of heart failure, small hemorrhages and foci of ischemia in certain parts of the brain were ascertained. Thrombosis, as well as large cerebral hemorrhages were not detected.
Severe forms of cardiogenic collapse are characterized by wheezing in the airways, coughing and pulmonary edema with the formation of foamy sputum, which has blood impurities. Venous pressure in such cases increases, and the liver enlarges, which is most often observed with a heart attack that captures the right ventricle or affectspapillary muscles.
A typical initial sign of a heart attack is a drop in blood pressure. It occurs in almost 90% of cases, and not only in the event of a cardiogenic collapse. In the first hours after a heart attack, the pressure may be elevated. But very soon - approximately at the end of the first day, it begins to fall. This phenomenon is most clearly seen in people who previously suffered from hypertension. As a rule, systolic pressure decreases. The larger the heart attack, the faster the hypotension sets in.
We looked at the first signs of a heart attack. First aid must be immediate.
How to recognize a heart attack?
This pathology is a type of coronary disease, which is fraught with irreversible changes in the heart muscle, which is caused by changes in the coronary arteries. If this condition occurs, the patient needs urgent medical attention.
To save lives, it is important to recognize the pathological condition in a timely manner. Myocardial infarction is distinguished by rather specific signs, in many respects similar to the symptoms of other diseases, and in some cases they may be completely absent. The localization and vastness of the zone of damage to the heart muscle, as well as the individual characteristics of the patient, cause various manifestations of this disease.
What are the signs of a heart attack, not everyone knows.
Symptoms of large-focal infarction
During such a pathology, necrosis of a large area of the myocardium occurs. With the development of this form of myocardial infarction, several stages are distinguished, whichare characterized by a certain set of manifestations. These stages are:
- Pre-infarction condition characterized by painful angina attacks, feelings of depression and restlessness. In some cases, there is no pre-infarction events, and the development of the disease begins immediately with an acute period.
- The acute period is characterized by severe pain that occurs suddenly and persists for quite a long time. This is an indicator of the capture and defeat of myocardial infarction zones. The pain in this case is burning, it varies in intensity and is localized, as a rule, in the chest, in its left part. The pain syndrome can radiate to the back, shoulder blades, left shoulder and lower jaw.
Symptoms of small-focal infarction
With the development of this form of infarction, the signs are less pronounced. The pain syndrome is not as intense as with an extensive form of the disease, as well as a decrease in pressure and heart failure. Small-focal infarction is easier to bear and causes fewer complications.
Heart attack care
Approximately half of all cases of death from such a pathological phenomenon occur due to the inability to provide the patient with the necessary assistance. This is because many people do not know how to behave in case of a heart attack, or what measures should be taken at the initial signs of pathology in a person nearby. However, with a myocardial infarction, almost every minute counts
When the first signs of such a condition occur, first of all, emergency medical care should be called. By phone, you should describe the symptoms and indicate that, in this case, a specialized team is needed - resuscitation or cardiology. In order to reduce the arrival time of doctors, it is advisable to meet them at the entrance.
While waiting for specialists, at the first signs of myocardial infarction, the patient must be provided with peace, giving him a horizontal position. At the same time, you need to free his body from tight clothes, and also open a window in the room to ensure fresh air.
With the symptoms and first signs of a heart attack in men, sometimes excessive motor arousal can be observed. At the same time, you need to ensure that he does not get up, showing all kinds of activity. If necessary, hold it in a horizontal position, even if this requires the use of force.
The patient should be reassured by talking to him in a calm voice, as stress will only aggravate the pathological condition. The person who is next to the sick person bears a great responsibility for his life, therefore, he himself should not panic and be nervous.
If there are signs of a heart attack, help is very important.
In order to relieve pain, you need to put a nitroglycerin tablet under the tongue or give it as a spray. If the heart attack does not stop within 10 minutes after this, this event should berepeat immediately. It is important to note that this substance is contraindicated in cases where the pressure drops sharply during a heart attack. In addition, it is important to consider that more than three tablets of nitroglycerin should not be given to the patient.
In the absence of nitroglycerin, a person can be given some kind of sedative, for example, valerian, motherwort, Valocordin, Corvalol, or an anesthetic available in a home medicine cabinet. Blood thinners such as aspirin or Cardiomagnyl can be used to help prevent blood clots.
In cases of cardiac arrest, which can sometimes accompany an acute heart attack, it is urgent to start cardiopulmonary resuscitation, which is carried out using chest compressions and artificial respiration. It is very important to be able to distinguish cardiac arrest from loss of consciousness, because in cases where the patient's pulse is preserved, cardiac massage is strictly contraindicated.
If a person has lost consciousness, his pulse is not palpable or becomes thready, you need to start resuscitation - apply a strong short blow to the chest area (the so-called "precordial blow"). In the absence of special equipment, he is able to perform the task of a defibrillator and start a stopped heart. Such a blow should be made once, and if it did not give the expected result, an indirect heart massage should be done, while ventilation of the lungs - "mouth to nose" or "mouth to mouth".
The article presented the first signsheart attack.
