Chest pain that may or may not radiate to other parts of the body is the most typical and significant symptom of myocardial infarction. It might be accompanied by other symptoms such as sweating.
Pain Chest pain is one of the most common symptoms of acute myocardial infarction and is often described as a sensation of tightness, pressure, or squeezing. Pain radiates most often to the left arm, but may also radiate to the lower jaw, neck, right arm, back, and upper
abdomen. The pain most suggestive of an acute MI, with the highest
likelihood ratio, is pain radiating to the right arm and shoulder. Similarly, chest pain similar to a previous heart attack is also suggestive. The pain associated with MI is usually diffuse, does not change with position, and lasts for more than 20 minutes. It might be described as pressure, tightness, knifelike, tearing, burning sensation (all these are also manifested during other diseases). It could be felt as an unexplained anxiety, and pain might be absent altogether.
Levine's sign, in which a person localizes the chest pain by clenching one or both fists over their
sternum, has classically been thought to be predictive of cardiac chest pain, although a prospective observational study showed it had a poor
positive predictive value. Typically, chest pain because of ischemia, be it unstable angina or myocardial infarction, lessens with the use of
nitroglycerin, but nitroglycerin may also relieve chest pain arising from non-cardiac causes.
Other Chest pain may be accompanied by
sweating, nausea or vomiting, and
fainting, Females are more likely to have unusual or unexplained tiredness and nausea or vomiting as symptoms. Females having heart attacks are more likely to have palpitations, back pain, labored breath, vomiting, and left arm pain than males, although the studies showing these differences had high variability. Females are less likely to report chest pain during a heart attack and more likely to report nausea, jaw pain, neck pain, cough, and fatigue, although these findings are inconsistent across studies. Females with heart attacks also had more indigestion,
dizziness,
loss of appetite, and loss of consciousness.
Shortness of breath is a common, and sometimes the only symptom, occurring when damage to the heart limits the
output of the
left ventricle, with breathlessness arising either from
low oxygen in the blood or
pulmonary edema. Other less common symptoms include weakness,
light-headedness,
palpitations, and abnormalities in
heart rate or
blood pressure.
Loss of consciousness can occur in myocardial infarctions due to inadequate blood flow to the
brain and
cardiogenic shock, and
sudden death, frequently due to the development of
ventricular fibrillation. When the brain was without oxygen for too long due to a myocardial infarction,
coma and
persistent vegetative state can occur. Cardiac arrest, and atypical symptoms such as
palpitations, occur more frequently in females, the elderly, those with diabetes, in people who have just had surgery, and in critically ill patients. In heart transplantation, the
donor heart is not fully innervated by the nervous system of the recipient. == Risk factors ==