According to the National Institute of Nursing Research, heart disease is responsible for more than 250,000 deaths among women each year. Heart disease is a general classification that includes several conditions affecting the heart and its blood vessels, including coronary artery disease (CAD), heart attacks, high blood pressure (hypertension), and atherosclerosis (thickening and blocking of the arteries). Women may experience different symptoms of heart disease than men, and these signs may be missed or misinterpreted by women and their doctors.
Signs of Coronary Artery Disease
The most common sign of coronary artery disease (CAD) is angina (or angina pectoris). Angina is essentially chest pain, and it can easily be mistaken for heartburn or indigestion. Women with angina may describe a number of sensations in the chest, including tightness, pressure, fullness, heaviness, aching, numbness or fullness. Occasionally, angina is also felt in the arms, left shoulder, neck, back and jaw. Angina may be a sign of an impending heart attack, so women with these symptoms should call 911 and seek emergency care right away. Other common symptoms of CAD include shortness of breath and irregular heart beat.
Signs of Heart Attack
Women are more likely to experience symptoms unrelated to chest pain before a heart attack, and they have reported having symptoms even weeks prior to the attack. Many of these symptoms may appear subtle, particularly when compared to the crushing chest pain most men experience during a heart attack. Some of these symptoms include unexplainable fatigue, sweating, sleep disturbances, indigestion, shortness of breath, nausea or vomiting, anxiety, dizziness or light-headedness, and discomfort in the neck, shoulder, back or abdomen.
Signs of High Blood Pressure
High blood pressure, or hypertension, is called a "silent killer," because it rarely causes any overt symptoms until blood pressure reaches extremely high or even deadly levels. Some women with very high blood pressure may exhibit nonspecific symptoms such as headache, fatigue, anxiety, confusion or forgetfulness, excessive perspiration or dizziness. In severe cases when hypertension has reached extremely high levels, heart attack, renal failure, stroke or sudden death can occur. Other critical symptoms include chest pains, numbness or tingling in hands and feet, muscle tremors, trouble speaking or understanding speech, blurred or loss of vision, severe nosebleeds, a sudden fall, coughing up blood, weakness or numbness of the face or one side of the body, or the sudden onset of a severe headache with no apparent cause.
Signs of Atherosclerosis
Atherosclerosis is sometimes commonly referred to as a hardening of the arteries and occurs when fatty deposits called plaques line the artery walls, causing them to narrow, harden and restrict blood flow. Atherosclerosis rarely causes obvious symptoms until the arteries have become severely blocked. When that happens, restricted blood flow to the affected area(s) can cause serious health problems or death. When blood flow is restricted to the brain or heart, symptoms such as dizziness, weakness or sudden numbness can occur, resulting in a heart attack or stroke. Women are known to experience non-traditional symptoms of stroke, especially confusion, disorientation and a loss of consciousness, including fainting, seizures, or coma. In other cases, atherosclerosis may occur in the legs, arms and pelvis, resulting in a condition called peripheral artery disease. Lack of blood flow to those areas of the body can cause numbness, pain, infection and decreased function in the affected area.
