Chest pain is one of the signs of heart disease. However, chest pain can also be caused by other conditions such as gastritis or dyspepsia. How to distinguish chest pain caused by heart disease from other conditions?

What does chest pain feel like?

Chest pain can take various forms, ranging from sharp, stabbing pain to dull aches. Chest pain can also sometimes feel like burning or like a sensation of heartburn.

In certain conditions, chest pain can radiate to the neck and jaw and spread to the back or down to one or both arms. Generally, people assume that chest pain occurs due to heart disease, but chest pain can be caused by various medical conditions.

You may feel breathless, stiff, or as if your chest is being squeezed when chest pain occurs. The pain can last for several minutes or hours.

Chest pain associated with heart disease

Chest pain associated with heart disease is often felt as vague discomfort in the chest. As the symptoms progress, you may also experience the following:

• Feeling of fullness, pressure, burning, or tightness in the chest
• Severe pain spreading to the back, neck, jaw, shoulders, and one or both arms
• Pain lasting more than a few minutes
• Pain disappears and reappears with varying intensity
• Shortness of breath
• Cold sweats
• Dizziness
• Rapid heartbeat
• Nausea or vomiting

Chest pain related to other health conditions

It is difficult to distinguish between conditions other than heart disease and the chest pain associated with it. Some symptoms that may accompany chest pain related to other medical conditions include:

• Acidic taste or sensation of food coming back into the throat and mouth
• Difficulty swallowing
• Pain that improves or worsens depending on body position
• Pain that worsens when breathing in deeply or coughing
• Chest pain that persists for hours

A digestive issue is most likely to be the cause when burning feels under the rib cage along with the chest pain.

Beware of heart attacks; this is what you should do

Heart attacks occur when the heart loses blood supply due to blockage in the arteries. Heart attacks are characterized by pain in the chest and other body parts.

It is important to recognize the symptoms of a heart attack and get help as soon as possible. The golden hour is a window of opportunity that affects the survival and quality of life of patients after a heart attack.

Within 80–90 minutes, the heart muscle begins to die if it does not receive blood supply. And within 6 hours, all affected parts of the heart will be permanently damaged.

Therefore, assistance for signs of a heart attack should be provided within 60 minutes. Early management at the hospital will reverse the condition and save your heart.

If you need medical advice or consultation, you can either visit a doctor or make use of the consultation features that are available in the Ai Care application by downloading the Ai Care application from the App Store or Play Store.

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