"My dad didn't experience any chest pain during his heart attack; he only had feeling of dizziness, nausea (feeling sick to the stomach) and vomiting. I was grateful that his doctors did an electrocardiogram on him, and found out that he had Myocardial Infarction and saved him on time." If any main vessel is blocked, the oxygen in blood is unable to flow to the heart, the significant reduction or cessation in blood supply would damage heart muscles and affect the heart functions. Myocardial Infarction (MI) is a common acute heart attack, patients suffer from MI are at risk of sudden cardiac death.

During a heart attack, patients often experience severe chest pain, and heavy pressure feeling in the middle of the chest. The pain usually lasts for at least a few minutes. The longer and more intense of the pain may represent a more severe condition of the patient. However, not all heart attack patients have obvious symptoms, some may just have the feeling of dizziness, vomiting and extreme tiredness, or have digestion problem, rapid heartbeats, laboured breathing, arm and back pain, and profuse sweating. These symptoms are more common in the elderly, women and diabetes patients. If such symptoms are not detected, it could lead to severe consequences.

In the above example, the patient was lucky that his son had the knowledge of heart attacks, and managed to call ambulance on time to save his father’s life.

By Dr Ho Kin Kei
Consultant in Emergency Medicine, Union Hospital
[19/3/2014, AM730]

(This article is translated from Dr Ho Kin Kei’s original article in Chinese.)