"I woke up that day and felt like I had heartburn"
For 65 year old Jan Marie Brown, who was in perfect health, having a heart attack at the age of 47 was a remote thought.
"I was a 47-year-old female in excellent health. Perfect blood pressure, no history of high cholesterol, always healthy. I woke up that day and felt like I had heartburn, something I just do not get. It was a pain in my esophagus just below my throat," writes Jan on Quora.
"The best way I can describe the pain is it felt like someone was trying to force a coke bottle down my throat. Like the bottle was about to split my esophagus open. About two inches below the notch in my collar-bone. Really closer to my throat than to my chest and smack in the center," she describes her symptom in a long post.
As she was waiting at the laboratory for a blood check up, writes Jan, she started sweating profusely. "I wasn’t hot, I was just sweating. I got out of the car, thinking the cool morning air would help, but when I stood up I felt very weak. A few minutes later it got hard to breathe. I couldn’t get a good breathe in. It suddenly dawned on my I was having a heart attack!, she writes.
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Jan had coronary spasm. "I’m 64 now, have not had any issues since. I do take a very low dose of a blood pressure medication to prevent another spasm, even though I have great blood pressure," she writes.
"I had a sudden tightening in the chest"
Ray Brian felt a tightening in the chest, which is considered to be one of the classic signs of heart attack.
"Was riding in a car when I had a sudden tightening in the chest. Felt very weak, light-headed and disoriented, couldn’t catch my breath, started sweating profusely, tried to talk but couldn’t," Ray writes on Quora.
"It wasn’t a “major” heart attack but I was in the hospital for a week," he writes.
"My husband told me his chest hurt"
Equine Creek shares her husband's ordeal with a heart attack.
" My husband called me after moving heavy work equipment. He was on his way home. He told me his chest hurt. I insisted we go to the ER he told me he was fine. I’m a nurse so of course I pushed the issue. He refused! He didn’t think it was heart because he had a heart work up two years earlier. It showed no blockages whatsoever. He was fit had perfect blood pressure and bloodwork," she writes on Quora.
"Three weeks later he went to play golf he called me on the way. He was his usual sweet funny self. A couple hours later I see a missed call from his best friend that didn’t play with them that day. I immediately felt like I was going to faint. He told me he was sending someone to drive me to the hospital. I just knew instantly he was gone. My everything died from a instant cardiac arrest. He was driving the golf cart and just fell over. His friend that was with him is a CPR instructor," she writes about her husband who succumbed to cardiac arrest at the age of 50.
"Woke up to a crushing pain in my chest, running down my left arm all the way to my fingertips"
For Mike Brigham, the first sign of a heart attack was a pain in the chest radiating out to the left arm.
"Woke up to a crushing pain in my chest , running down my left arm all the way to my fingertips. I sat bolt upright in bed. That’s when the left side of my jaw and my neck started hurting. The pain was severe and felt somewhat like it was burning. I got out of bed to get my sublingual Nitro to put under my tongue. I was given it just a week before as a precaution. I had had some chest pains two weeks prior to this onset, not so severe, while I was working," he wrote on Quora.
"I experienced back pain between my shoulder blades"
Jennifer Moore's blood pressure was normal even during the heart attack, she has said on Quora.
"The main symptom for me though was the back pain between my shoulder blades. The night before the actual heart attack I was having what I call a contraction for lack of a better word from one shoulder to the other. It was a wave of tightening and then it would stop only to start up again. It was very weird. By morning I tried to walk to the bathroom but I was so dizzy that I could not focus. It was like the snowy picture of an old Television but I could see through it a little. I had no chest pain at all. I had been having an irregular heart beat for about a year prior," Jennifer writes about her heart attack symptoms.
Cardiovascular diseases claim close to 18 million lives every year
As per the World Health Organisation (WHO), cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death worldwide. Heart diseases claim 17.9 million lives every year.
One third of the deaths caused due to heart complications occurs prematurely.
The common risk factors of heart diseases are unhealthy diet, less physical activity, excessive consumption of alcohol, high blood pressure, elevated blood glucose, overweight and obesity.
Common heart attack signs
The common signs of heart attack are:
Chest pain
Discomfort or tightness in chest
shortness of breath
pain in jaw, neck, back, arm or shoulder
Nausea
Light-headed or dizziness
Fatigue
Heartburn/ indigestion feeling
Cold sweat