Not only do we pay attention on posters listing signs of heart attack, but we need to understand that there are also other signs that could alert us ahead of time that our hearts were in trouble.
Recent studies conducted by medical experts reveal there are indeed earlier signs and symptoms that patients experienced in the months or even years leading up to a heart attack. As one renowned cardiologist said, "The heart, together with the arteries that feed it, is one big muscle, and when it starts to fail the symptoms can show up in many parts of the body." Here are five eye-opening hints that your heart needs an examination. Should you experience any of these signs -- especially two or more together -- is enough reason to pay your doctor a visit.
1. Neck pain
A lot of people mistakenly thought that a hurting neck, particularly with feelings of tightness, is attributable to muscle strain in the side of their necks. Well, better think again, especially if it doesn't go away. It could a sign of a post-heart attack. One reason they commonly miss this symptom is because they expect that heart attacks should have acute pain and numbness in the chest, shoulder, and arm. Actually, women in particular are less likely to experience heart pain that way. More often, they feel twinges of pain and a sensation of tightness running along the shoulder and down the neck. The pain might also extend down the left side of the body, into the left shoulder and arm. This happens because the nerves from the damaged heart tissue send pain signals up and down the spinal cord to join with nerves that extend out into the neck and shoulder.
To distinguish it, the pain feels like it's diverging out in a line, rather than located in one very specific spot. And it doesn't go away with ice, heat, or muscle massage.
2. Sexual problems
A survey of male patients being treated for cardiovascular disease are discovered to suffer from Erectile Dysfunction or ED for months or years before they were diagnosed with heart trouble. The study convinced doctors that they now consider it the standard of care to do a full cardiovascular workup when a man comes in complaining of ED. The arteries that supply the penis also narrows and hardens like the arteries around the heart. Being smaller, they show damage much sooner, about three to four years before the disease would otherwise be detected.
Although it is not imediately distinguishable, if you or your partner has problems getting or maintaining an erection, that's reason enough to visit your doctor to investigate cardiovascular disease as an underlying cause.
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