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What to do if your heart hurts
What to do if your heart hurts

Video: What to do if your heart hurts

Video: What to do if your heart hurts
Video: Chest Pain in Children | Frequently Asked Questions | Cincinnati Children's 2024, March
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Heartache is a common complaint, especially in the elderly. But middle-aged people often feel alarming symptoms in this area. Instead of going to a doctor and making an accurate diagnosis, they look for what to do and what to drink at home.

What are the negative symptoms

In reference books and information portals, you can find many detailed instructions for those who have a heartache, what to do, how to behave and what to drink. However, any advice ends with an urgent recommendation to call an ambulance or undergo an examination to establish a real diagnosis.

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The whole problem with such recommendations is that they give general instructions that can only stop anxiety for a while. Over-the-counter drugs have no therapeutic effect and are rather taken to calm conscience and have a placebo effect.

A person without medical education takes all pain symptoms literally. However, the most incompetent doctor understands that when the heart hurts, it does not necessarily signal cardiac pathology.

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For example, women of childbearing age are not susceptible to heart attacks, they are protected by nature, which ensures the continuation of the family, but sometimes non-cardiac pains on the left side of the chest indicate a serious illness.

All reasons can be conditionally divided into several groups, and cardiac pathologies in them are the smallest:

  • it is hard to breathe with pathologies of the respiratory system - this is pneumonia, and pleurisy, and pneumothorax, and bronchial asthma in a severe degree of development;
  • sometimes it seems that the heart hurts, but in fact the main reason is intercostal neuralgia, myalgia, vegetative-vascular dystonia, panic attack, hormonal imbalance during menopause, osteochondrosis, intervertebral hernia;
  • the digestive organs are able to create the illusion that the heart hurts, and this is actually the gallbladder, esophagus, stomach or pancreas;
  • angina pectoris, ischemic heart disease or myocardial infarction - in terms of probability, they are only at the very end of the list.
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The advice to call an ambulance or contact a local therapist is not accidental - you can always orient yourself by the accompanying symptoms, and exclude cardiac pathologies by making an electrocardiogram.

It would be wrong to ignore negative sensations, but if they are not caused by malfunctions in the heart muscle, you should not swallow pills and drops on random advice, but exclude diseases of the cardiovascular system and find the real cause of the discomfort.

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How to find out what is the cause of heart pain

Aching pain is the most common and incomprehensible, in which it is difficult to navigate. You can find out what it is only after passing a detailed examination.

In any case, this is a violation of vascular tone, a defect in the supply of various tissues located on the left. But it can be with an equal degree of probability a sign of cardioneurosis, osteochondrosis, or the initial symptom of an impending attack of angina pectoris.

In each of these cases, general advice is powerless. It is imperative to know the real reason and undergo treatment. Cardioneurosis requires urgent measures, and diseases of the spine and heart require constant, persistent therapy.

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The situation is approximately the same with other symptoms:

  1. Pressing pain is a sure sign of circulatory disorders. However, in this case, the heart hurts for various reasons. These can be congenital malformations, cardiomyopathy, and hemodynamic disturbances caused by other causes.
  2. When the heart hurts and gives it to the left hand, and all this is accompanied by increased sweating, nausea and shortness of breath - we can say with a high degree of probability that an attack of angina pectoris begins. Experts note that sharp pain does not always accompany this disease. It can give off to the scapula and jaw, and the pain can be accompanied by a feeling of pressure, stretching or burning.
  3. Sweating, panic, dizziness and the feeling that the heart is aching, aching and at the same time beating hard are a sure sign of a vegetative crisis. But in this case, too, this is just a general diagnosis, and the condition itself is generated by various pathologies - from hormonal disorders and diseases of the endocrine system to a brain tumor. Pills and drops will be required, but it is not at all necessary that they must be from the heart.
  4. If unpleasant sensations appear when inhaling, exhaling and there is a return to the left limb even when swallowing, this may be a sign of an injured organ of the digestive system.
  5. An inflamed segment of the shoulder joint can also irradiate the arm.
  6. Pain in the left hand is also caused by inflammation of the mammary gland, and pneumonia, like pleurisy, can be differentiated by coughing, shortness of breath and a permanent lack of oxygen.
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There are many tips on what to do at home until the ambulance arrives. But if the heart hurts, it is impossible to recommend how to treat it on your own.

A wide range of conditions that create a person's subjective confidence in cardiac pathology does not allow a diagnosis to be made without preliminary research. And self-diagnosis and self-directed treatment can easily backfire.

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Analysis of the situation

There are general tips to follow no matter how the sensation comes from the left side. It is imperative to try to understand what exactly causes the pain symptoms.

Often this is a consequence of a stressful situation, strong excitement experienced for some reason. A quarrel, conflict, professional troubles, the upcoming testing or being in a cramped and stuffy room, in public transport with closed windows, with a large crowd of people, are factors that can cause the development of aching, pulling and even sharp, stabbing pain. These are the consequences of overstrain of the nervous system, as they usually say in such cases "from experiences."

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If the feeling that the heart hurts appeared spontaneously, accompanied by hyperhidrosis, shortness of breath, nausea and panic, it can be assumed that this is a more serious case.

If the day before there were libations, headache and heart aches, tremors, thirst and depression are observed, then this often happens after excessive alcohol consumption. And the more often a person drinks alcohol, the more severe the consequences of intoxication, and the more pronounced the symptoms.

The easiest way is for those patients who are already aware of their illness. They are prescribed medications (for daily use and for emergencies), and they can control the situation without succumbing to the panic that only aggravates the general condition.

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Depending on the analysis carried out, a person needs to take appropriate measures:

  1. Drink valerian tincture (or pills), they are in constant and open access at the pharmacy, they are practically safe and well relieve the nervous state, the consequences of the stress experienced.
  2. There is an option that is recommended in any case - an aspirin tablet, fed with water. After it, many people experience pain, especially if the reason is not very alarming. Other painkillers should not be taken - analgesics and non-steroids have their own characteristics, which can lead to negative consequences if the reason is really alarming.
  3. With alcohol intoxication, you should not drink Corvalol. You need to try to remove intoxication as soon as possible. To do this, drink plenty of fluids (naturally, without ethanol), sorbents, aspirin, hepatoprotectors, sometimes a laxative or diuretic.

What to do if the pain has arisen unexpectedly, develops rapidly, is accompanied by other alarming symptoms, if the left hand burns in the area of the heart, and the left hand grows numb? At the same time, weakness, nausea, shortness of breath, severe pain with a deep breath, pallor or severe hyperemia of the skin of the face suddenly develop. In this case, you need to take heart medications and take a lying position before the ambulance arrives.

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Measures to be taken in any case

In case of pain, which is taken as a manifestation of cardiac pathology, several important measures need to be taken to help the person and not aggravate his condition. You can give him valocordin, corvalol, valerian, validol (from what is at hand).

Only valerian can be given a couple of tablets, in other cases they are guided by age. Any of these drugs will also help with intercostal neuralgia, which patients easily mistake for a heart attack. With her, too, sometimes the hand pulls, the limbs go numb and there is a sharp pain when inhaling. In this case, cardiac medications give the patient a subjective sense of calm that action has been taken.

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Fresh air will provide the necessary oxygen supply. Therefore, in the room you need to immediately open the window, and in the transport - the windows. Then to ensure the freedom of air flow into the patient's lungs - to remove tight, pressing clothes from him, in extreme cases, to open the collar, in cold weather, remove the neck and headwear.

The ideal option is to make you lie down or sit down in a comfortable place, relax, try to cope with an attack of panic, and breathe deeply. If severe pain occurs, try to draw in as much air as possible, inhaling to a level at which pain is not yet felt.

In a warm season, you need to take a person out of the sun and give him a little warm water to drink (cold water should not be in any case). In this case, nitroglycerin should not be given, because the patient may have low blood pressure, and this drug is contraindicated with it.

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Other methods used for cardiac pathologies

You can only take drugs that optimize the condition at home, if prescribed by a doctor. Here is the best advice at home - if half an hour after the medication was drunk, the correct posture and the airing of the room, the condition does not stabilize, you need to call an ambulance.

Since the heart often hurts in the elderly, and they can live alone, you need to call so that relatives, friends or neighbors come to the rescue. If this is not possible, then you need to provide the doctor with access - leave the door open.

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The specialist can prescribe nitrates to relax the myocardium, give nitroglycerin, if the pressure allows, to reduce the heart rate with the help of adrenergic blockers. In medical practice, agents that thin the blood or reduce vascular spasms can be used.

But all this powerful arsenal cannot be used independently if a person does not know why his heart hurts, and whether it hurts at all. Some heart medications can kill easily if they are not needed or even if the dosage is exceeded.

So if there are sudden pains on the left side of the body, you need to carefully analyze the situation, take sedatives or common drugs "from the heart" - valerian, valocordin, corvalol, wait until they have an effect.

If the attack persists, call an ambulance. But even if it has passed, a visit to the doctor is still necessary.

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Summarize

Cardiac pathologies are diseases that are easily confused with other diseases, so self-medication is unacceptable, but preventive measures can be taken:

  1. Provide the patient with fresh air and unbutton or remove tight clothing.
  2. If possible, take a relaxed, recumbent position.
  3. Give a drink to simple remedies to find peace: valerian, valocordin, corvalol.
  4. If the attack has not passed after half an hour, you need to urgently call an ambulance.

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