How Fatigue And Tiredness May Help Predict Heart Attack In Women

The findings of a survey conducted on over 500 revealed that 95 percent of them felt something was off about a month before having a heart attack. Furthermore, the two most common symptoms they experienced were sleep problems and fatigue. Could your extreme tiredness be a warning sign?

Research on heart attacks in women

According to more research that involved female heart attack survivors, a whopping 70 percent said that they felt extremely tired prior to the heart attack. Usually, heart attack sufferers experience chest pain as a primary sign of a heart problem, but evidence suggests that women often present with different symptoms. The same research revealed that 43 percent of these heart attack survivors felt no chest pain at all!

In the survey mentioned at the beginning of the article, more than 30 percent reported anxiety as a symptom of a heart attack, while about 40 percent claimed they felt indigestion and dyspnea. Other results include:

• 55 percent reported feeling unusually weak.
• 57 percent claimed they felt chest pain prior to the attack.
• 39 percent said they felt dizzy.

Older women are also likely to experience fatigue even without having any heart disease, but doctors must keep in mind that age represents a risk factor for heart attacks as well. That’s why women should trust their instincts when they feel something unusual going on with their bodies and see a doctor as soon as possible.

Signs of heart attacks in women

For a very long time, people have known that women experience heart attacks slightly differently than men do. Here are some important things to keep in mind:

• People consider chest pain the first and most obvious sign for a heart attack. However, women are more likely to have a heart attack without feeling any discomfort in the chest region.
• Upper body pain is also something that occurs among the female population. This pain isn’t singled out to a specific area in every case, and it can be found anywhere in the arms, jaw, shoulders, or neck.
• According to another study, women are more likely to experience sleep disturbances prior to having a heart attack. But sleep problems as a sign of a heart attack come in different forms. Some women claimed that no matter how much they slept, they would wake up feeling very tired. Others said they would wake up in the middle of the night and start walking around the house for no apparent reason.

The dangers of a silent heart attack

Despite feeling fatigued weeks before a heart attack, women rarely suspect that a heart attack might be lurking. When a heart attack has no symptoms, or only signs that are often mistaken for something else, you might be having a silent heart attack.

Even if you’re not seeing the sign, inside your coronary arteries, something is going on. A silent heart attack is no less dangerous than one that comes with regular symptoms. In fact, a silent heart attack is more threatening because it’s usually diagnosed after the event, once the damage is already done.

In general, women who experience fatigue think of it as a symptom for some other problem. These unusual symptoms are mistaken for the flu or indigestion, which prevents women from seek medical help immediately.

Heart attacks are caused by a blockage in the coronary arteries. If there is a blood clot inside the vessel, you’re dealing with a blockage. If you have plaque build-ups on the walls of the arteries, you’re dealing with a narrow blood vessel. Whatever the case, unexplained fatigue should never be ruled out as a potential sign of a heart attack.

Different studies have surfaced the fact that women who are having a silent heart attack confuse their state for anxiety. Heart attacks are a problem that requires an immediate start of treatment, so if women don’t know they’ve had one, it will take longer for them to receive specialized help.

The sooner a heart attack is diagnosed and treated, the better the chances of containing severe scarring and damage.

Handling the situation

But if you have the risk factors that trigger atherosclerosis, or haven’t had your heart checked in a while, you should go to see a doctor immediately, particularly when experiencing symptoms with no obvious cause.

If you suspect you’re having a heart attack, immediately call 911. Once you reach the hospital, the doctors might perform and EKG or an echocardiogram to determine if there are any signs of a heart attack.

Conclusion

The problem with fatigue and tiredness is that they are often neglected signs of a heart attack. Throughout decades, people have associated heart attack with an image of someone grabbing their chest and crouching in pain.

However, studies have suggested that chest pain isn’t always the first sign of a heart attack. What’s even more interesting is that a lot of women who have survived a heart attack experienced fatigue months before the event even occurred. Ladies, trust your instincts, they might save your life.