Heart attack is also called myocardial infarction and a blockage of blood flow to the heart muscle.

What's the Heart attack?

Heart attack is also called myocardial infarction and a blockage of blood flow to the heart muscle.

A heart attack is a medical emergency. A heart attack usually occurs when a blood clot blocks blood flow to the heart. Without blood, tissue loses oxygen and dies.

What's the prevention of heart attack?

In general, there are many things that you can do that may prevent a heart attack. However, some factors beyond your control, especially your family history, can still lead to a heart attack despite your best efforts.

Still, reducing your risk can postpone when you have a heart attack and reduce the severity if you have one.

Heart Attack (Myocardial Infarction)

A heart attack (medically known as a myocardial infarction) is a deadly medical emergency where your heart muscle begins to die because it isn’t getting enough blood flow.

A blockage in the arteries that supply blood to your heart usually causes this. If a healthcare provider doesn’t restore blood flow quickly, a heart attack can cause permanent heart damage and death.

Blockages in your coronary artery keep blood from reaching your heart muscle, causing a heart attack.

A blocked coronary artery prevents blood from reaching your heart muscle and causes a heart attack.

What's the real heart attack?

A myocardial infarction (commonly called a heart attack) is an extremely dangerous condition that happens because of a lack of blood flow to your heart muscle.

The lack of blood flow can occur because of many different factors but is usually related to a blockage in one or more of your heart’s arteries.

Without blood flow, the affected heart muscle will begin to die. If blood flow isn’t restored quickly, a heart attack can cause permanent heart damage and death.

What's the heart attack is a life threatening?

A heart attack is a life-threatening emergency. If you suspect you or someone you’re with is having a heart attack, call 911 (or your local emergency services phone number).

Time is critical in treating a heart attack, and a delay of even a few minutes can result in permanent heart damage or death.

What a heart attack feel like?

When a heart attack happens, blood flow to a part of your heart stops or is far below normal, which causes injury or death to that part of your heart muscle.

When a part of your heart can’t pump because it’s dying from lack of blood flow, it can disrupt the pumping sequence for your entire heart. That reduces or even stops blood flow to the rest of your body, which can be deadly if it isn’t corrected quickly.

What's the symptoms of a heart attack?

Heart attacks can have a number of symptoms, some of which are more common than others.

Men and people assigned male at birth (AMAB) are likely to have different heart attack symptoms than women and people assigned female at birth (AFAB).

What's the Symptoms of a heart attack?

Chest pain (angina). This can be mild and feel like discomfort or heaviness, or it can be severe and feel like crushing pain.

It may start in your chest and spread (or radiate) to other areas like your left arm (or both arms), shoulder, neck, jaw, back or down toward your waist.

What's the reason for Shortness of breath or trouble breathing?

Fatigue.

Trouble sleeping (insomnia).

Nausea or stomach discomfort.

Heart attacks can often be mistaken for indigestion or heartburn.

Heart palpitations.

Anxiety or a feeling of impending doom.

Sweating.

Feeling lightheaded, dizzy or passing out.

Heart attack symptoms in women and people AFAB

Medical research in recent years has shown that women and people AFAB are less likely to have chest pain or discomfort that feels like indigestion.

They’re more likely to have shortness of breath, fatigue and insomnia that started before the heart attack.

They also have nausea and vomiting or pain in the back, shoulders, neck, arms or abdomen.

What's the causes and risk factors?

The vast majority of heart attacks occur because of a blockage in one of the blood vessels that supplies your heart.

This most often happens because of plaque, a sticky substance that can build up on the insides of your arteries (similar to how pouring grease down your kitchen sink can clog your home plumbing). That buildup is called atherosclerosis.

Sometimes, plaque deposits inside the coronary (heart) arteries can break open or rupture, and a blood clot can get stuck where the rupture happened.

If the clot blocks the artery, this can deprive the heart muscle of blood and cause a heart attack.

Heart attacks are possible without a blockage, but this is rare and only accounts for about 5% of all heart attacks.

What's the kind of heart attack can occur for the following reasons?

What's the Coronary artery spasm?

Rare medical conditions: An example of this would be any disease that causes unusual narrowing of blood vessels.

Trauma: This includes tears or ruptures in the coronary arteries.

Obstruction that came from somewhere else in your body: A blood clot or air bubble (embolism) that gets trapped in a coronary artery.

Electrolyte imbalance.

Eating disorders: Over time, these can damage your heart and ultimately result in a heart attack.

Takotsubo or stress cardiomyopathy.

Anomalous coronary arteries (a congenital heart defect you’re born with where the coronary arteries are in different positions than normal in your body. Compression of these causes a heart attack).

Who is most at risk for a heart attack?

Several key factors affect your risk of having a heart attack. Unfortunately, some of these heart attack risk factors aren’t things you can control.

Note:- The risk of heart attack increases greatly at age 45.

Women and people AFAB: The risk of heart attack increases greatly at age 50 or after menopause.

Note:-

If you have a parent or sibling with a history of heart disease or heart attack, especially at a younger age, your risk is even greater because your genetics are similar to theirs.

What's the reason of risk increases?

Your father or a brother received a heart disease diagnosis at age 55 or younger.

Your mother or a sister received a heart disease diagnosis at age 65 or younger.

What's the risk factor of heart attack on Lifestyle?

Lifestyle choices you make that aren’t good for your heart can increase your risk of having a heart attack.

What's the heart attacks diagnosed?

Healthcare providers usually diagnose heart attacks in an emergency room setting.

Anyone with heart attack symptoms should undergo a physical examination, including checking pulse, blood oxygen levels and blood pressure and listening to heart and lung sounds.

What's the History and symptoms? The provider will ask you about the symptoms you experienced. They might also ask someone who was with you to describe what happened.

What's the Blood tests? During a heart attack, the damage to heart muscle cells almost always causes a chemical marker, a cardiac troponin, to appear in your bloodstream.

Blood tests that look for that marker are among the most reliable methods to diagnose a heart attack.

What's the Electrocardiogram (EKG or ECG)?

This is one of the first tests you get when you come to an ER with heart attack symptoms.

What's the Echocardiogram?

Using ultrasound (high-frequency sound waves), an echocardiogram generates a picture of the inside and outside of your heart.

What's the Angiogram?

This test shows areas with little or no blood flow.

What's the Heart computed tomography (CT) scan?

This creates a highly detailed scan of your heart.

What's the Heart MRI?

This test uses a powerful magnetic field and computer processing to create an image of your heart.

What's the Nuclear heart scans?

Similar to angiography, these scans use a radioactive dye injected into your blood.

What sets them apart from an angiogram is that they use computer enhanced methods like computed tomography (CT) or positron emission tomography (PET) scans.

How's heart attacks treated?

Treating a heart attack means restoring blood flow to the affected heart muscle as soon as possible.

This can happen in a variety of ways, ranging from medication to surgery.

It’s extremely likely that treatment will use several of the following methods.

What's the Supplementary oxygen?

People having trouble breathing or with low blood oxygen levels often receive supplementary oxygen along with other heart attack treatments.

You can breathe the oxygen either through a tube that sits just below your nose or a mask that fits over your nose and mouth. This increases the amount of oxygen circulating in the blood and reduces the strain on your heart.

What's the anti clotting medications?

This includes aspirin and other blood-thinning medicines.

What's the Nitroglycerin?

This medicine relieves chest pain and causes blood vessels to widen so blood can pass through more easily.

What's the Thrombolytic (clot-busting) medications?

Providers use these only within the first 12 hours after a heart attack.

What's the Anti-arrhythmia medications?

Heart attacks can often cause malfunctions in your heart’s normal beating rhythm called arrhythmias, which can be life-threatening. Anti-arrhythmia medications can stop or prevent these malfunctions.

What's the Pain medications?

The most common pain medication given during heart attack care is morphine. This can help alleviate chest pain.

Percutaneous coronary intervention

Providers restore circulation to your affected heart muscle with a procedure called percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI).

This uses a catheter-based device inserted into a major blood vessel (usually one near your upper thigh or your wrist).

PCI is a critical tool in restoring blood flow, and the sooner that happens, the better the chance of a good outcome. Hospitals use a metric called door to balloon time to measure their ability to treat a heart attack.

This is the average time it takes for people to undergo PCI after they first come into the Emergency Room.

PCI often includes the placement of a stent at the site of the blockage to help hold the artery open so another blockage doesn’t happen in the same spot.

What's the Coronary artery bypass grafting?

People who have severe blockages of their coronary arteries may undergo coronary artery bypass grafting. This surgery is often called open-heart surgery, bypass surgery or CABG (the acronym is pronounced the same as cabbage).

CABG involves using a blood vessel from elsewhere in your body (usually your chest, arm or leg) to construct a detour for blood. This reroutes blood around one or more blocked artery sections and brings blood to your heart muscle.

What's the Very common?

Requires a medical diagnosis

Lab tests or imaging often required

Treatable by a medical professional

Short term resolves within days to weeks

Critical needs emergency care

Note:- For informational purposes only. Consult your local medical authority for advice.

What's the Symptoms?

Requires a medical diagnosis

Symptoms include tightness or pain in the chest, neck, back or arms, as well as fatigue, lightheadedness, abnormal heartbeat and anxiety. Women are more likely to have atypical symptoms than men.

What's the Treatments?

Treatment depends on severity

Treatment ranges from lifestyle changes and cardiac rehabilitation to medication, stents and bypass surgery.

What's the symptoms of heart attack?

Chest pain or discomfort.

Feeling weak, light-headed, or faint.

Pain or discomfort in the jaw, neck, or back.

Pain or discomfort in one or both arms or shoulders.

Shortness of breath.

What's the main cause heart attack?

Coronary heart disease (CHD) is the leading cause of heart attacks. CHD is a condition in which the coronary arteries (the major blood vessels that supply the heart with blood) become clogged with deposits of cholesterol. These deposits are called plaques.

How long do heart attacks last?

Mild heart attack symptoms might only occur for two to five minutes then stop with rest. A full heart attack with complete blockage lasts much longer, sometimes for more than 20 minutes.

Why do healthy people have heart attacks?

Seemingly healthy people are “suddenly” having heart attacks because, as it turns out, their arteries are not perfectly healthy and they don't know it.

With the proper noninvasive tests, these diseased arteries would have been identified, and the heart attacks wouldn't have happened.