Medically Reviewed by Anil Om, MD

When a heart attack hits, you may not realize it if you’re waiting for that feeling of an elephant sitting on your chest. McLeod Interventional Cardiologist Anil Om, MD, says many patients — especially women and the elderly – often have symptoms that are not typical.

Here are highlights form Dr. Om’s comments:

Not every heart attack patient has that feeling of “an elephant sitting on their chest.” A lot of patients can have very atypical symptoms.

They just don’t feel good.
Feel weak and tired.
Have an indigestion kind of feeling.
These all can be symptoms of a heart attack.

Other symptoms that are not typical and that can be experienced by female and elderly patients:

• Weakness,
• Dizziness,
• Left arm is a little numb,
• Neck pain or
• Jaw pain.

The longer that I’ve been practicing medicine, the more I see patients that believe– at first – it’s not a heart attack, but it turns out that it is.

It is very unusual for elderly people to experience, “Oh I have an elephant sitting on my chest.”

When in doubt, seek medical care at the nearest hospital emergency department. The best thing for a heart attack is to treat it early. For someone whose artery is completely blocked, the sooner we can open it, the better for the patient.

That’s why hospitals have interventional cardiologists covering the Emergency Department round-the-clock.

The important thing is: get to the hospital quickly.

There are a lot of people we see in the emergency room who fortunately haven’t had a heart attack. Frankly, that’s OK. But we just don’t want to miss a heart attack.

If you don’t feel good or not right, let us check. Minimize that damage to the heart muscle.

Time is muscle. The sooner a patient gets to the ER, the sooner we can save that heart muscle from damage.

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