A Personal Wake-Up Call! Recognizing Heart Attack Symptoms In Women

You will hear people say all of the time "Listen to your body". If something feels off, it probably is. I had a very big scare recently and I should have acted sooner, but fortunately, when I did seek medical attention, I was going to be okay.

I am here to tell you not to do what I did. Listen to your gut feeling and your symptoms. You could save your own life.

It may sound dramatic but a couple of weeks ago I woke up feeling "off". I chalked it up as not sleeping well the night before. As the day went on, I started feeling like I had indigestion and told myself that it must have been breakfast not agreeing with me. Later that morning, I experienced tingling in my fingers on both hands along with still feeling disconnected. I justified this by the way I was sitting. Do you see a pattern here?

Women tend to justify symptoms they are feeling to keep powering through and not taking even themselves seriously. Also, women who are having a heart attack have very different symptoms than men do.

When I started getting pressure in the left side of my chest, still not thinking it could possibly be a heart attack, I googled common symptoms in women who experience a heart attack just in case. To my surprise, many of these symptoms that I googled were exactly what I was feeling.

But even this didn't make me go directly to the emergency room. I made the excuse that I was alone with my son and didn't want to scare him.

Finally, after six and a half hours (yes six and a half hours!) and now experiencing pain in my left shoulder, I told my wife that I thought I may be having a heart attack. I had her drive me to the ER. All in all, I wasn't having a heart attack (thank God) but was experiencing extremely high blood pressure.

Why am I telling you this? So that you don't make the same mistake I did. STOP justifying and making excuses for how you feel. LISTEN to your symptoms and your body. DON'T WAIT to tell someone or take yourself to the hospital. I am extremely fortunate that all I had was high blood pressure. If you wait, you may not be so lucky.

As women, we must know the symptoms of a heart attack because it presents completely different than in men. These, according to heart.org, are:

1. Uncomfortable pressure, squeezing, fullness, or pain in the center of your chest. It lasts more than a few minutes or goes away and comes back.
2. Pain or discomfort in one or both arms, the back, neck, jaw, or stomach.
3. Shortness of breath with or without chest discomfort.
4. Other signs such as breaking out in a cold sweat, nausea, lightheadedness, and indigestion.

If you are experiencing any of these symptoms and maybe not all of them, seek medical attention or call 911. The life you save may be your own.