A heart attack is a serious medical condition which happens when the blood supply to part of your heart gets blocked. Your heart muscle then becomes damaged because of lack of oxygen. The medical name for a heart attack is myocardial infarction, or MI.
A heart attack can be life-threatening: call nearest hospital for an ambulance if you think you, or someone you’re with, may be having one. The sooner you get treatment for a heart attack, the better your chances of survival.
Heart attacks are usually caused by coronary heart disease (CHD). This is when the coronary arteries, which supply your heart muscle with blood and oxygen, develop build-ups of fatty deposits called plaques. This causes the coronary arteries to narrow. The plaques can also rupture, causing blood clots to form. Together the plaques and blood clots can completely block your coronary artery, stopping blood flow to your heart muscle and causing a heart attack.
The risk of having a heart attack increases as you get older, and men tend to get them at a younger age than women.
The symptoms of a heart attack can vary from person to person. It isn’t always obvious that you’re having one. Often people wait too long before calling for help because they aren’t sure what’s happening.
If you have a heart attack, you’ll most likely feel pain or discomfort in the middle of your chest. It may spread up to your jaw, neck and shoulders, and then down to your arms (usually your left arm). The pain is often described as a sensation of heaviness, pressure, tightness or squeezing, aching or burning. The pain doesn’t always come on suddenly, as you might expect. For some, the pain may be mild, and come on slowly.
Other symptoms may include:
Women, older people and people with diabetes are more likely to have these other symptoms. See our FAQ for information about heart attacks in women.
A heart attack may happen without any warning. But some people have symptoms, such as breathlessness, fatigue and feeling unwell for days or even weeks before their heart attack.
See below infographic on how to spot a heart attack.
If you suspect that you or someone you’re with is having a heart attack, call your nearest hospital for emergency medical help immediately. You can do the following while you’re waiting for an ambulance.
A paramedic or doctor at hospital will give you an ECG (electrocardiogram) as soon as possible. An ECG checks the electrical activity of your heart, and can often show whether or not you’re having a heart attack. If the ECG confirms a heart attack, you may be given treatment straightaway, before waiting for results of any other tests.
Your doctor may recommend other tests, either immediately or over the next few days in hospital.
These include the following.
How you are treated in hospital will depend on how severe your heart attack is and how long it is since your symptoms started.
If you’re having the most serious type of heart attack, when your coronary artery has been completely blocked, your doctor may recommend treatment to restore blood flow to the affected heart muscle. There are two main ways to do this.
Sometimes you may need further surgery once you’ve recovered from the initial heart attack. This might include more angioplasty or a coronary artery bypass graft (CABG). CABG is an operation to bypass a narrowed section of your coronary artery using a blood vessel from your chest, leg or arm. This diverts the flow of blood around your narrowed or blocked coronary artery.
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Once you’ve recovered from a heart attack, your doctor will recommend a range of measures to try to reduce your risk of having another one. These may include medicines, lifestyle changes and taking part in a cardiac rehabilitation programme. See Prevention section below for more information on lifestyle changes you can make.
Your doctor will prescribe you medicines to start taking in hospital. You’ll usually need to continue taking these long term. These may include:
Always make sure you’ve spoken to your doctor or pharmacist about how to take your medicines.
Cardiac rehabilitation programmes aim to help you recover from your heart attack and get back to as full a life as possible afterwards. The programmes can reduce your risk of dying after a heart attack so it’s an important part of your treatment.
Cardiac rehabilitation programmes include an exercise component with a range of different activities, which will be tailored to you. They may also include education and information sessions about your condition and support with things like giving up smoking, stress management and changing your diet. Cardiac rehabilitation may start while you’re still in hospital, and you should be invited to a session soon after you’re discharged.
Certain factors can make you more likely to develop coronary heart disease, which then puts you at a greater risk of a heart attack. These include if you:
There are ways you can help yourself by reducing these risks – see our section on prevention of heart attack below.
There are also factors that are out of our control, for instance having a family history of coronary heart disease at a young age, getting older and being male. If these factors apply to you, it’s even more important that you reduce your other risks factors of heart attack as much as you can, by making lifestyle changes.
With prompt treatment, many people these days survive a heart attack and go on to make a good recovery. But it’s important to be aware that a heart attack can lead to more serious problems, either straightaway, or in the long term.
Without treatment, a heart attack may cause permanent damage to the structure of your heart. If there is a lot of damage, your heart won’t be able to work properly anymore, and this can be fatal. Other complications may include the following.
Treatments are available to help manage all of these complications.
You may be able to reduce your risk of developing coronary heart disease and having a heart attack by making some healthy lifestyle changes. These include the following.
If you’ve previously had a heart attack, these measures can reduce your risk of having another one. Your doctor will also prescribe medicines to reduce your risk of further heart attacks. It’s important that you take these as prescribed. If you have any questions about your medicines or how to take them, ask your pharmacist.
If you have certain risk factors, such as a family history of heart disease, your doctor may advise you to have a health check to assess your risk of heart attack
Although heart attacks are more common in men, it’s important to know that women get them too. For every 100 people who have a heart attack, 40 are women. In fact, women are more likely to die from a heart attack than men.
Like men, the most common symptom of heart attack in women is a dull, heavy chest pain. But women are more likely to have more less typical symptoms too – such as abdominal discomfort, feeling sick and vomiting.
Women tend to wait longer before calling for emergency medical help when they have heart attack symptoms. This may be because they don’t think it could possibly be a heart attack, or they don’t want to cause a fuss. This delay can have a big effect on whether you survive a heart attack.
If you think you’re having a heart attack, call for emergency medical attention.
Many people make a full recovery after having a heart attack. Others find that they can’t do as much as they used to before, or go on to have further problems. How well you recover after a heart attack depends on lots of things, such as how severe a heart attack it was and the treatment received. How old you are, and whether you have any other underlying conditions, also makes a difference.
It’s important to remember that your recovery may take several months as your body needs time to heal. Your best chance of getting back to normal is to follow your doctor’s advice about lifestyle changes and take any medications that they prescribe. It’s also really important to go to your cardiac rehabilitation sessions where you’ll get lots of help, advice and support for your recovery.
Returning to work can be an important part of your recovery. It can help with your general self-esteem and mental wellbeing. How long this takes will depend on your heart condition, what treatment you had and what work you do. If your job involves sitting at a desk, you’ll probably be ready to go back much sooner than if your job is more physically demanding. Talk to your doctor and your employer about what’s best for you, and whether you need to make any adjustments to your role.
Chest pain and other symptoms such as breathlessness and feeling dizzy aren’t always symptoms of heart attack. They can also be symptoms of other things, such as panic attacks, muscular and joint problems, gastro-oesophageal reflux disease (GORD) and other problems affecting your heart and lungs. But there’s no way to know for certain whether you’re having a heart attack if you develop these symptoms, so it’s important not to delay seeking help. Only a doctor will be able to tell you once they’ve done some tests.
If you think you, or someone you’re with could be having a heart attack, get emergency help immediately. Don’t wait. The sooner you get medical help the better the chance of surviving and making a full recovery.
The information and/or article is solely the contribution of Bupa, (hereinafter referred to as “Bupa UK”) a United Kingdom (UK) based healthcare services expert and is based on their experiences and medical practices prevalent in UK. All the efforts to ensure accuracy and relevance of the content is undertaken by Bupa UK. The content of the article should not be construed as a statement of law or used for any legal purpsoe or otherwise. Niva Bupa Health Insurance Company Limited (formerly known as Max Bupa Health Insurance Company Limited) (hereinafter referred to as “the Company”) hereby expressly disown and repudiated any claims (including but not limited to any third party claims or liability, of any nature, whatsoever) in relation to the accuracy, completeness, usefulness and real-time of any information and contents available in this article, and against any intended purposes (of any kind whatsoever) by use thereof, by the user/s (whether used by user/s directly or indirectly). Users are advised to obtain appropriate professional advice and/or medical opinion, before acting on the information provided, from time to time, in the article(s).
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