"It can be worse when you're lying down or when you're taking deep breaths." Coronary artery dissectionĪ coronary artery dissection is a rare but serious condition that can cause severe chest pain when one of your arteries develops a tear. "That can cause a sharp chest pain that can also spread to your left arm or shoulder," Lala says. This condition occurs when the tissue lining the heart, the pericardium, becomes inflamed, which sometimes happens as a complication of a viral infection. If the chest discomfort is positional - meaning that it feels better when you sit up or lie down - then it might be related to pericarditis, Blankstein says. Chest pain causes that aren't a heart attack Pericarditis If someone with chest pain also has known risk factors for a heart attack (such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, or smoking), "the likelier it is that it could be a heart attack or this pain could be due to a blockage in the heart arteries," Martin explains. Seth Martin, cardiologist and associate professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins Hospital, tells. "It's (also) worth thinking about who the person is that's having the chest pain," Dr. In particular, women can have excessive sweating, vomiting or nausea, Blankstein says. Some people might have other symptoms along with chest discomfort that can signal a heart attack. The pain might also radiate to the shoulder, neck or jaw areas. It's also typically persistent, and it doesn't change when you switch your position, Blankstein says. The discomfort tends to be severe, though. And experts use the term "discomfort" rather than pain because that sensation may not always feel distinctly painful, Blankstein adds.įor some, it might feel like tightness, heaviness or pressure in the chest. "But, by far, the most common symptom would be chest discomfort," he says. Ron Blankstein, a preventive cardiology specialist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, tells. First, learn the signs of a heart attackĭifferent people can have different sets of symptoms with a heart attack, Dr. Here's what to look out for, as well as some sneaky causes of chest pain that aren't a heart attack. But that doesn't always mean the actual underlying cause is life-threatening. Anuradha Lala, an advanced heart failure and transplant cardiologist at The Mount Sinai Hospital, tells .īecause a new instance of chest pain can signal a serious issue, like a heart attack, it's always important to get medical attention - especially if your pain persists and is particularly severe, Lala says. "The key is to remind our patients - and remind all of us - to tune in with our bodies and recognize and pay attention when something doesn't feel right," Dr. ![]() ![]() But many other chest pain causes can lead to similar types of discomfort, experts say, and it can be really tricky to know what you're actually dealing with. The sensation of chest pain can immediately send your mind racing to: "Oh no, am I having a heart attack?" And, it's true that severe pressure or tightness in the chest is the most common symptom of a heart attack.
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