Heart problems feel like various sensations, often including chest pain (pressure, squeezing), shortness of breath, palpitations (racing/fluttering), dizziness, sweating, fatigue, and pain/discomfort in the arms, back, neck, jaw, or stomach, sometimes with nausea, anxiety, or swelling in legs, but symptoms vary and can be subtle, especially in women. Seek immediate medical help (call emergency services) for severe or worsening chest pain, breathing difficulty, fainting, or persistent discomfort, as these can signal a heart attack.
Knowing you have heart problems involves recognizing symptoms like chest pain/pressure, shortness of breath, fatigue, dizziness, palpitations, and pain in your arms, back, neck, or jaw, which signal potential issues like a heart attack or heart failure, but also less obvious signs like swelling, sweating, nausea, or indigestion, requiring immediate medical attention for sudden or worsening symptoms. Don't ignore symptoms, especially if they're new or severe, and see a doctor for persistent issues like swollen ankles or leg pain during walking.
Symptoms
Your chest may feel heavy or like someone is squeezing your chest or heart. You may also feel a sharp, burning pain in your chest. You may feel the pain under your breastbone (sternum, so the pain is called substernal) or in your neck, arms, stomach, jaw, or upper back.
Heart palpitations are a feeling like your heart is missing heartbeats, racing or pounding. You can feel palpitations in your chest, throat or neck. Palpitations can happen at any time, even if you're resting or doing normal activities.
Three early warning signs of heart failure include persistent fatigue/weakness, shortness of breath (especially with activity or lying down), and swelling (edema) in your legs, ankles, and feet, often accompanied by rapid weight gain from fluid buildup, all signaling your heart isn't pumping efficiently enough. Other key indicators are a chronic cough (sometimes with pink mucus) and heart palpitations.
“When stress hormones are elevated, your blood pressure may rise and you may feel heart palpitations, a racing heartbeat, shortness of breath, or even chest pain. In extreme cases, stress can also cause the heart to temporarily weaken, a condition called stress-induced cardiomyopathy.”
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Chest pain or discomfort. Most heart attacks involve discomfort in the center or left side of the chest that lasts for more than a few minutes or that goes away and comes back. The discomfort can feel like uncomfortable pressure, squeezing, fullness, or pain. Feeling weak, light-headed, or faint.
Anxiety over heart attacks is also known as cardiophobia, and it is relatively common for people with high stress levels or risk factors for heart disease. It may include excessive fear about your heart and a belief that you have a heart condition — even if there's no medical evidence that this is actually happening.
Symptoms of a silent heart attack can make you feel like: You have the flu. You have a sore muscle in your chest or upper back. You have an ache in your jaw, arms or upper back.
Most people having a heart attack feel discomfort in the center of the chest. It can last more than a few minutes, or it may go away and then return. It can feel like uncomfortable pressure, squeezing, fullness or pain. Discomfort in other areas of the upper body.
Tests to help diagnose or watch coronary artery disease include:
Eat plant strong - Eat greens, beans, vibrant colors (fruits and vegetables), whole grains, nuts and seeds. Walk away from the Standard American Diet (SAD) and toward a whole-food, plant-based diet.
You may feel squeezing, pressure, heaviness, tightness or pain in the chest. It may feel like somebody is standing on your chest. The chest pain usually affects the middle or left side of the chest.
What is the 3 Minute Step Test? The 3 Minute Step Test is a simple, cost-effective assessment that evaluates cardiovascular fitness based on heart rate recovery following a 3-minute stepping exercise. The test involves stepping up and down on a 12-inch bench at a rate of 96 beats per minute, facilitated by a metronome.
Cardiac anxiety is when you have a heart problem or have had a cardiac event, but your worries are disproportionate and are having a negative effect on your daily life.”
Electrocardiogram. An electrocardiogram (ECG) is a test that records the electrical activity of the heart. The ECG reflects what's happening in different areas of the heart and helps identify any problems with the rhythm or rate of your heart. The ECG is painless and takes around 5-10 minutes to perform.
If you have chest pain that's new and severe, or associated with other symptoms like shortness of breath or nausea, these are reasons that you should go to the emergency department.
Heart palpitations feel like a sudden awareness of your heart beating, often described as a racing, pounding, fluttering, or flip-flopping sensation in your chest, throat, or neck, sometimes feeling like it's skipping or having extra beats, and can occur at rest or during activity. While usually harmless, they can be accompanied by shortness of breath, dizziness, or chest pain, which warrants immediate medical attention.
Both heart attacks and anxiety attacks can cause pain in your chest, but there are some signs that can help you tell the two apart. Pain from a heart attack feels heavy. Usually, this crushing, squeezing or burning pain radiates to the arm, jaw or back. An anxiety attack may cause pain that feels sharp or stabbing.