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What to do if your heart hurts, at home
A stabbing pain in the heart area can be the result of many diseases. Knowing the causes of the discomfort is important to provide the right care. Often, timely measures are taken to save human life.
What to do if your heart hurts? First, stop worrying and try to calmly assess the nature of the sensations. In cardiology, pain in the cardiac region is conventionally divided into two groups: cardialgia and angioedema. The choice of first aid method depends on which category the discomfort falls into.
Pain syndrome with cardialgia is most often the result of diseases of non-cardiac origin. These include osteochondrosis, neurological diseases, abnormalities of the stomach, vegetative-vascular dystonia, menopause in women and others.
Pain with cardialgia can be aching, stabbing, cutting. Felt for a long period.
Such sensations are not stopped by nitroglycerin and other heart medications.
Attacks are often accompanied by loss of strength, sweating, “goosebumps”, low blood pressure.
The sensation increases with inhalation and with a change in body position. With osteochondrosis, painful manifestations in the cervical vertebrae and the area between the shoulder blades join.
What to do at home if your heart hurts?
The first step is to calm the victim down. Provide air flow, open shirt collar, remove belts and other parts of clothing that hinder movement. You can give sedatives: Corvalol, Valerian root infusion, Validol.
If the attack occurs for the first time, it is better not to use nitroglycerin and its analogues.
Taking strong medications can make the condition worse. The second required action is to call a doctor. Only a specialist will correctly assess the nature of the pain and provide adequate assistance. Ignoring heart pain is unacceptable!
Anguish pains indicate serious pathologies of the cardiovascular system. They have a pressing, squeezing character, often felt as a burning sensation.
What if your heart hurts like this? The answer is clear: urgently call an ambulance. Before arrival you must:
stop moving, sit up or lie down;
put a tablet of nitroglycerin or its analogue under the tongue. It is better to take drugs while lying down – nitrates sharply reduce pressure, dizziness and loss of consciousness are possible;
if sensations do not stop within 5 minutes, take one or two more tablets.
Important: the intake and dosage of nitrates must be agreed with the doctor! It is better to discuss actions in case of an attack in advance at the doctor’s appointment.
It is inappropriate to take corvalol or valocordin to relieve pain in angina pectoris. These drugs only calm, but do not relieve heart attacks.
In the emergency departments there is a free service: a doctor’s consultation by phone. The doctor will recommend what you can do at home if your heart pricks. Be sure to take the advice before the ambulance arrives. Sometimes timely action taken by loved ones can save lives.
Expert Opinion
Our question was answered by Wday.ru expert – neurologist Maxim Domashenko.
Deputy chief physician for the medical department of the GKB im. S.P. Botkin of the Moscow Department of Health, neurologist, Ph.D.
– Severe chest pain is often mistaken for a heart attack. Similar symptoms and neuralgia, a syndrome no less dangerous to health.
When discomfort appears in the left side of the chest, patients often turn to a general practitioner or cardiologist, suspecting angina pectoris. But with ischemic heart disease, the pain, as a rule, is localized behind the sternum, burning and unbearable, it is given either to the hand or to the lower jaw, and is stopped by nitroglycerin. With intercostal neuralgia, pain is localized only in one half of the chest, but not in the center. As a rule, it appears after physical exertion, changes with a deep inhalation or exhalation, and intensifies if you touch the ribs. Often intercostal neuralgia occurs as a complication of herpes infection and then becomes chronic. In this case, neuropathy develops – a completely different nature of pain syndromes and, accordingly, a different treatment.
Olga Fomina, Anna Gerasimenko