According to the American Heart Association's Women and Cardiovascular Disease 2009 update, more than 454,000 women died due to heart attacks in 2005. While heart disease is often considered to be a disease of middle-aged men, about 50 percent of fatal heart attacks are suffered by women---mostly due to misdiagnosis on the part of the patient and the health care professional.
A Primer on Heart Disease
Our bodies manufacture all the cholesterol they need to build cells, regulate fluids and make hormones. It's not until we reach our early 20s that we begin to accumulate more cholesterol than we need on the inside of our arteries---largely from saturated fat and cholesterol in our diets. If the extra cholesterol isn't excreted from our bodies, it can occlude or completely block blood flow through the arteries. This can be particularly serious when blood circulating through the coronary arteries (the blood vessels that supply blood to the heart) is restricted or occluded, causing a heart attack. The same set of circumstances can occur in the carotid arteries, causing a stroke, and in the lower extremities, causing peripheral artery disease (PAD).
Common Signs of a Heart Attack
The most common signs of a heart attack in men have been well represented in movies, television series and the media. They include tightness or crushing pain in the chest, pain running down the left arm or underneath the jaw, heartburn and indigestion that won't go away with changes in posture, vomiting, dizziness and lack of consciousness. The symptoms can last for minutes or hours and can completely disappear on their own, only to return later. Many heart attack victims have no warning at all---their first symptom is sudden death.
Unique Heart Attack Symptoms of Women
Women suffer many of the same symptoms as men, but they tend to experience less-pronounced effects, according to the Women's Heart Foundation (WHF). Instead of sudden, crushing pain in her chest, a woman will often complain of indigestion, gas-like discomfort, nausea or vomiting. Their symptoms can come on slowly and disappear completely before returning several weeks later. Because their symptoms appear less life-threatening, women are quick to discount their severity and go on about their daily activities. If they do seek medical treatment, health care professionals often come to the same conclusion and send them home. The most disconcerting problem with heart attack symptoms in women is they don't necessarily fit neatly into any category, so they're discounted as anything serious.
Other Missed Symptoms
Because of the relatively slow progression in symptoms in women, they are often confused with other less-serious ailments. Symptoms like indigestion, a sense of impending doom, mild to severe discomfort between the shoulder blades, unexplained chest pain over long periods of time and unexplained weakness or dizziness are often associated with ailments other than heart disease. As a result, many women suffering from a heart attack fail to seek immediate medical attention, the WHF reports. When they do, many health care professionals discount the severity of their symptoms and send them home with instructions to come back later if the symptoms persist.
Recommendations from the Experts
The WHF urges women who are at high risk for heart disease to treat any unexplained symptoms seriously. Those with a family history of heart disease, cigarette smoking, diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure and sedentary lifestyles should pay particular attention to any unexplained aches, pains and fatigue. If you or someone you know experiences any of the above symptoms, you should assume the worst and seek immediate medical attention. It could literally save your life.
