The month of February is National Heart Month, when we focus on heart health and raise awareness of the symptoms and causes of heart disease and how they may differ from men to women.
Heart disease is the number one killer of women in the United States, more than cancers, strokes or other conditions.
And the symptoms can indeed vary greatly from those experienced by men.
While many suffer the chest pains like men, far fewer do than men. Men tend to suffer those "classic" chest pains more often. Women often report that they felt ill up to a month before their actual heart attack. The symptoms included extreme fatigue, nausea, indigestion, difficulty sleeping and shortness of breath. Men tend to experience fewer warning symptoms. Recognizing these symptoms can be crucial in getting immediate medical attention.
According to a study by the National Institute of Heath, women's symptoms are less predictable than men's. Here are some of the statistics of women's symptoms and how often they occur:
Before a heart attack
-Unusual fatigue - 70%
-Sleep disturbance - 48%
-Shortness of breath - 42%
-Indigestion - 39%
-Anxiety - 35%
Major symptoms during the heart attack include:
-Shortness of breath - 58%
-Weakness - 55%
-Unusual fatigue - 43%
-Cold sweat - 39%
-Dizziness - 39%
Only 30% of women reported chest pain.
http://usgovinfo.about.com/cs/healthmedical/a/womensami.htm
While a heart attack may not always be avoidable, there are ways to increase your likelihood of maintaining optimum heart health:
Take regular exercise
Do not smoke
Eat a healthy diet, with plenty of fruits, vegetables, leans proteins, omega 3 fatty aids, low in others fats (especially saturated and trans fats).
Limit alcohol (although a glass of red wine has shown to be heart healthy)
Get regular health screenings
Know your family history
Maintain a healthy weight
Tell Us
Have you (or someone you know) experienced a heart attack or heart disease? Did you have warning signs? What were they?
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I saw a program on this a while back and one of the other things that struck me was that often, women having a heart attack have increasing back pain.
These symptoms in women -- all those that Susan listed -- are particularly dangerous because as a group, we tend to ignore the needs of our own health while we're taking care of others. Fatigue? We feel it all the time. Anxiety? Indigestion? Insomnia? Check, check, check. We are very familiar with a lot of these symptoms just as normal byproducts of our busy, time-crunched lives.
So one important thing to remember is your intuition. If you don't feel right -- and you know what I mean, you just have the sense that things aren't right -- listen to yourself and make an appointment to get things checked out. Just the fact that we can feel symptoms for up to a month beforehand is frightening -- we go that long without doing anything about it!!
Trust yourself to know when you need to get checked out, and then do it. The worst that could happen is that you'll find out you're just fine!!! And that's not a waste by any means.
And if you think you might be having a heart attack, call 911 and then chew a regular aspirin right away. Chewing it gets it into your bloodstream twice as fast, where it can work on the platelets that are trying to clot.
February 2, 2009 - 9:49amThis Comment
I have not experienced a heart attack in my family (we have cancer, diabetes and other conditions...some of which can lead to heart disease).
I just wanted to comment that I did not realize that 70% of women do NOT have chest pain during a heart attack! That is amazing, as it is the "classic symptom" that is thought of (and seen on TV or in movies) for a heart attack.
Thanks for sharing this information!
February 1, 2009 - 8:56pmThis Comment