When a woman has a heart attack her signs and symptoms are often different from what a man experiences. The crushing chest pain and other hallmarks for males may not show up in women.
Dee Anderson didn't think her extreme fatigue was a warning sign until a doctor told her. "And he said, Dee, you're having a heart attack."
Like many, she had been ignoring the signs. "Pressure, slight pressure in my chest that ran across the chest. Not in one particular spot. No pain, no stabbing pain or anything like that," Anderson explains.
Men and women don't typically have the same heart attack symptoms.
Often, women don't realize they are having a heart attack. Their symptoms can be much more subtle.
So women may have unusual fatigue for months, shortness of breath, nausea, vomiting.
"They may have chest pain or discomfort or any abnormal feeling in the upper part of the body uh stomach, back, arm or neck or throat," points out Dr. Susmita Parashar
of the Emory School of Medicine.
Two weeks after her first bout of chest tightness, Dee's symptoms got worse.
"It wasn't just a pressure anymore or a discomfort, it was an ache, like a bad tooth ache. Suddenly I felt the same ache in my elbows. Just in my elbows. In my chest and in my elbows and then I knew it was cardiac."
Dee called her doctor, who told her to get to the ER, saving her heart and her life.
(Susan Hendricks for CNN's Health Minute)
Dee Anderson didn't think her extreme fatigue was a warning sign until a doctor told her. "And he said, Dee, you're having a heart attack."
Like many, she had been ignoring the signs. "Pressure, slight pressure in my chest that ran across the chest. Not in one particular spot. No pain, no stabbing pain or anything like that," Anderson explains.
Men and women don't typically have the same heart attack symptoms.
Often, women don't realize they are having a heart attack. Their symptoms can be much more subtle.
So women may have unusual fatigue for months, shortness of breath, nausea, vomiting.
"They may have chest pain or discomfort or any abnormal feeling in the upper part of the body uh stomach, back, arm or neck or throat," points out Dr. Susmita Parashar
of the Emory School of Medicine.
Two weeks after her first bout of chest tightness, Dee's symptoms got worse.
"It wasn't just a pressure anymore or a discomfort, it was an ache, like a bad tooth ache. Suddenly I felt the same ache in my elbows. Just in my elbows. In my chest and in my elbows and then I knew it was cardiac."
Dee called her doctor, who told her to get to the ER, saving her heart and her life.
(Susan Hendricks for CNN's Health Minute)
