Heart attack – or an attack of heartburn?
I was sent home from the Emergency Room with a misdiagnosis of acid reflux (despite presenting with textbook heart attack symptoms like crushing chest pain, pain radiating down my left arm, sweating and nausea) just two weeks before being hospitalized with a newly revised diagnosis of ”significant heart disease”.
How to tell if you’re having a heart attack or just an attack of simple indigestion? Symptoms can appear confusingly similar, but here’s how indigestion may be markedly different from a cardiac event:
- indigestion pain does not spread to other areas of the body like the arm or jaw
- indigestion pain is often relieved by taking antacid medications
- indigestion usually hits shortly after a meal or in the middle of the night, while heart attack symptoms can appear after exertion or at rest
- lying down or bending over makes indigestion symptoms worse
- indigestion symptoms don’t include sweating or shortness of breath
Learn more about:
- the signs and symptoms of women’s heart attacks
- the differences between heart attacks and acid reflux or indigestion
- The Heart Truth, the Heart & Stroke Foundation’s campaign to educate women about heart disease
See also:
© 2009 Carolyn Thomas www.myheartsisters.org
Note: information on this site is not meant as a substitute for medical advice
What do you think? Share your opinion below, or return to homepage
on April 2, 2010 on 9:44 am
Wonderful website for women! Thankyou!
I checked myself into an ER about 2 years ago w/chest pain. The pain across my back was excruciating and there was some heaviness in my chest. My cardiac enzymes were elevated, my EKG was so weird the ER doc called 5 cardiologists. I was hypotensive, tachycardic and could feel the fluids filling up in my lungs.
I was flown to Albuequerque, NM where they did a heart cath and diagnosed w/Tako Tsubos. It’s a stress related cardiomyopathy. There’s a very informative website @ http://www.takotsubo.com. This is a rare condition, caused by stress. I’m 56 now, have been a registered nurse for 14 years.
Keep up the informative work w/your website.
on April 3, 2010 on 12:09 pm
Thanks so much for your comments, Diane! I’d never even heard of Takotsubo or ‘broken heart syndrome’ until I went to Mayo Clinic. http://mayoclinic.com/health/broken-heart-syndrome/DS01135
I hope you are feeling much better now!
cheers,
C.
on September 13, 2009 on 8:26 pm
I have put a link to this article from my website: Original post: Heart attack – or an attack of heartburn? « Heart Sisters [...]