The presence of chest tightness and chest pain is by no means trivial; it can be an extremely dangerous sign! Because 90% of myocardial infarction patients will have a combination of chest tightness and chest pain, and the condition of the infarction develops rapidly, and the yin and yang is sometimes between minutes. The appearance of chest tightness and chest pain should be the first time to seek medical attention.
Chest tightness and chest pain The most dangerous signal
5 million people die from cardiovascular disease in China every year, and 70% of these people pass away due to sudden myocardial infarction. Ninety percent of people who have a heart attack will experience chest pain. This chest pain may vary slightly from person to person, and the patient often cannot tell the exact location of the pain, which may manifest as chest tightness, crushing pain, and in some cases, even a feeling of difficulty breathing, near death, and may be accompanied by cold sweats. Moreover, chest pain caused by heart attack is often associated with exercise or mood changes.
If the chest pain starts just after getting angry or during exercise, it is highly suspected to be angina or heart attack. If you have emergency medicine at home, you can take heart pills or nitroglycerin under the tongue first, and if the chest pain cannot be relieved after 3-5 minutes, you should take the medicine a second time, and if it still does not work, you should go to the hospital at the first time, and never have the idea of “fear of bothering your family” or “just rest for a while”. Do not have the idea of “fear of bothering your family” or “just rest for a while”.
Time is the heart muscle, early treatment determines life and death and prognosis
The mortality rate of heart attack in China is as high as 20%, especially the mortality rate of myocardial infarction combined with cardiogenic shock is as high as 80%, while in some developed countries, the figure is only 5%. Technically speaking, the level of heart attack resuscitation in China is no less than those in developed countries, and the reason for such a large gap in mortality depends on whether the patient can be resuscitated in time after the attack of heart attack.
There are two main methods of heart attack resuscitation.
The first is to use drugs for emergency thrombolysis.
The second is to do interventional surgery and put stents. No matter which resuscitation method is used, time is very important. The “golden time” for heart attack treatment is within 3 hours of the onset of the disease. If the patient can be rescued within this time, the survival rate is not only high, but also most of them will not leave serious sequelae. If this time period is exceeded, the treatment effect will be greatly reduced. If it takes more than 6 hours, not only the mortality rate increases exponentially, but even if they survive, their future mobility will be greatly affected.
Poor concept of time leads to delay in treatment
According to the statistics of Yangjiang City Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, the average heart attack patients who come to the hospital in Yangjiang City only come to the hospital about 5 hours after the onset of the disease, while the acute heart attack patients referred to the hospital from the primary hospital exceed 7 hours, indicating that most heart attack patients are significantly delayed in seeking medical treatment and cannot receive the most critical treatment within 3 hours after the onset of the disease. Now, Yangjiang City Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine has established a green channel for “emergency coronary intervention PCI”, in which all departments of the hospital collaborate to give the highest priority to percutaneous coronary intervention therapy for acute myocardial infarction.
With the opening of the green channel, patients are diagnosed with electrocardiography and preoperative medication in the emergency department, and then sent directly to the intervention room for the procedure, which reduces the consultation procedure and gives priority to medical resources, thus greatly shortening the treatment time and reducing the mortality rate of acute heart attack. The shorter the “compressed” time before arrival at the hospital, the less impaired the patient’s heart function can be. This depends on the timely detection and recognition of the “alarm” signs of heart attack – chest pain and chest tightness by patients and their families.
Coronary intervention is performed by introducing a thin catheter through a puncture in the thigh (femoral artery) or wrist (radial artery), first diagnosing coronary stenosis, then treating the vessel requiring intervention by placing a nickel alloy stent made of high-tech materials into the coronary stenosis and using a balloon to open it, thereby widening the stenosis and restoring coronary blood flow. Coronary stenting is a minimally invasive procedure with the advantages of minimal trauma, high safety and repeatability. The procedure can significantly relieve angina attacks, improve quality of life, and reduce the incidence of cardiac accidents.
Other symptoms of heart attack
Some heart attack patients may present with epigastric pain, toothache, jaw pain, left shoulder and arm pain, back pain, etc. Zou Peiyuan suggests that such patients are often accompanied by chest pain, but the pain in other areas will be more intense, making the symptoms of chest pain ignored, and they are more likely to miss the rescue time.
How to distinguish whether these pains are caused by other diseases or heart attack?
Pain caused by heart attack has a distinctive feature – it is associated with exertion, agitation, etc. Take toothache as an example, toothache caused by heart attack may be aggravated after walking for a while and relieved after rest. A toothache caused by common dental disease may have been constant or worsened when encountering stimuli such as hot, cold, sour or sweet.
Prevention of myocardial infarction is important
Acute myocardial infarction is due to the formation of blood clots in the coronary arteries on the basis of atheromatous plaque, which suddenly and completely blocks one of the coronary arteries, causing local necrosis of part of the myocardium due to severe and persistent ischemia. From the point of view of the age of patients, the disease is more likely to occur in the middle-aged and elderly, 87%-96.5% of people over 40 years of age, 60%-89% of patients have a history of hypertension before the onset of the disease, nearly half of patients have a history of angina pectoris, but there are also people who have acute myocardial infarction at the age of 20. Obesity, diabetes and lack of physical activity are prone to this disease, but it is especially important to note that acute myocardial infarction is more frequent in the winter and spring, which is closely related to the cold climate.
The specific methods to reduce the occurrence of acute myocardial infarction and timely treatment after the onset are: to promote a healthy lifestyle, pay attention to self-care, away from the triggering factors, and actively prevent the occurrence of acute myocardial infarction. Both mental and physical workers should prevent overexertion, pay attention to the combination of work and rest, and maintain a good state of mind and stable emotions. Do not overeat and overeat. Hypertension, coronary heart disease patients in the winter and spring season, pay attention to the cold to keep warm. Do not drink too much alcohol. Patients with coronary heart disease should adhere to drug therapy under the guidance of a doctor, even if they feel good about themselves, they should also adhere to the maintenance of drug therapy, the reason is that patients with coronary heart disease is a good target for acute myocardial infarction. Understand the precursors of the onset of the disease, to achieve timely access to medical care.
Patients with acute myocardial infarction, generally 1-2 weeks before the onset of aura symptoms can appear, such as timely consultation, proper treatment, then at least 50% of patients can avoid the occurrence of heart attack, even if the occurrence of not only light symptoms, and good healing, such as the following symptoms, should promptly seek medical care, hospitalization as soon as possible. If you find a patient with acute myocardial infarction, you should do a good job of on-site treatment. Methods are: immediately rest in place, maintain a sitting position, relaxed mood; promptly contact the ambulance, with a stretcher to take the patient to the hospital, do not help the patient walk to the hospital; oral Valium, nitroglycerin tablets or quick-acting heart pills and other coronary artery expansion drugs, on-site treatment should be quickly transferred to the hospital for treatment.