Pain in Heart Attack
The pain in heart attack may be of different intensity, and it is common for it to be either very intense or mild. One specific sign of a myocardial infarction is, as in the angina pain, the growth in intensity during the first minutes. The pain is usually located in the retrosternal area and it often radiates in the neck, jaw, left shoulder and inner left arm. At the moment when the pain occur, the most informative and practical diagnosis method would be an ECG (Electrocardiogram). Emergency doctors can easily distinguish a heart attack on ECG, as it has a particular line.
The cause of pain in heart attack
It is known from those who survive a heart attack that sometimes it is a very painful and unpleasant experience. Myocardial infarction, as the name says it, is the necrosis of the heart muscle due to the absence of blood flow to the heart muscle. The pain is a sign that the ischemia is already started and that the muscle is dying. In some cases the pain may be lasting for many hours, as the ischemia continues.
In cases when it was successfully removed the factor that was obstructing the coronary artery, and the blood flux was reestablished, the pain usually disappears suddenly. The heart attack pain is composed of three elements, as specialists say: the pain from the heart itself, the pain from the entire organism response to the changes that take place in the heart and the psychological factor - a fear of imminent death, known also as "angor animi".
In some cases (up to 20% or more) the heart attack may be painless. As pain in the heart is a response of the nervous terminations to the stimuli, in cases when the nervous sensitivity is affected, the pain may not be felt so acute. This usually happens in elderly persons, or in diabetics, whose nervous sensors not only in the heart but all over the organism are affected and the pain sensation may be absent or diminished.
Treatment of heart attack pains
As you already may be know, staying at home without calling an emergency service is highly dangerous and can threat your life. If you are travelling often, please refer to these emergency phone numbers in different countries and try to have a mobile phone at hand. The first thing you can do at home when you experience pains that you think might be resembling a heart attack is to lie down immediately, in horizontal position, control your breath and remember to breath rhythmically, call for any help and take an aspirin if you are not allergic to it.
The pain in heart attack is a severe event, and the medications of choice to cut the pain remain narcotics. Usually morphine is given – it has a double effect of calming the pains and calming the heart. Also, nitroglycerine remains a drug that continues to be used, you can take a nitro at home while you wait for the ambulance, but in hospital conditions, they will administer it intravenously as the effect is faster.
You might be interested in:
- General overview on Heart Attack
- Are you at your first heart attack?
- What is a massive heart attack?
- Coronary heart disease
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