The following scenario is common in cardiology outpatient work Patient: Doctor, I have a toothache, I need to check for heart disease. Dr. Cheng: Why don’t you come to the cardiology department instead of the dentist for a toothache? Patient: They said the toothache could be a heart attack, so I came to check. Dr. Cheng: Who are “they”? Patient: They’re on the TV health talk show 。。。。。。 (Note: Or, what the newspaper said, or what a new friend said 。。。。。) In recent years, as people’s health awareness has increased and various media have paid attention to health, people have been able to obtain certain medical information and have a preliminary impression of certain diseases, which is undoubtedly a good side. But everything has its advantages and disadvantages, because ordinary people are not professional doctors, superficial knowledge of disease + excessive concern for health, easy to cause “listen to the wind is rain” embarrassing situation. Let’s go back to the example mentioned above. ”A toothache may be a heart attack”, is this statement correct? It is true that there is some truth in this statement. However, the truth is, “A toothache is more likely to be a toothache!” (Of course, there can be other causes of toothache, such as trigeminal neuralgia, etc., which are less common.) But if a patient has a toothache and immediately thinks of a heart attack first, that’s a bit “too much”. Myocardial infarction, in terms of symptoms, does have a variety of clinical manifestations, and in a few cases, it can be manifested as “toothache or sore throat”, but it is often “not just toothache”, and most of them are accompanied by other manifestations including chest pain, shoulder pain, cold sweat, and a feeling of imminent death. Patients usually have many risk factors for coronary heart disease (e.g., smoking, diabetes, high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, etc.). Therefore, if the toothache is just a simple toothache without any other discomfort, then the toothache may be a “toothache”, so don’t “associate” it too much with heart disease and see a cardiologist. Frankly speaking, in all the years Dr. Cheng has been a doctor, he has only encountered one case of “sore throat” in the emergency room that was a heart attack infarction, and that was an 80-year-old woman who had diabetes for many years, and she had a “sore throat” with cold sweat, and the ECG showed that it was an acute myocardial infarction. Similarly, “stomach pain or stomach ache could be a heart attack”, “shoulder pain or back pain could be a heart attack”, and so on and so forth. This theory, which seems to have some truth to it, makes many patients with stomach pain or back pain go out of their way to come to the cardiology department for consultation. The result is that almost none of them are really heart attacks, almost none, and many patients really do not need to go to cardiology first, but are better off going to the relevant department first. To give a common life example: before an earthquake, there may be some anomaly of animals scurrying about. However, if you suspect that an earthquake is going to happen when you see animals scurrying around, you will be in a panic, which may cause many people to live in fear and bring disadvantages. In fact, before an earthquake, animals do not necessarily scurry, and not only animals scurry, there must be some other manifestations. Therefore, from a medical point of view, it is enough for ordinary people to have a certain understanding of “toothache, sore throat, stomach pain and back pain, which may be myocardial infarction”, but it is not advisable to extend and expand it to everyone, otherwise it will cause unnecessary panic and numerous over-visits. For patients with such symptoms, experienced doctors, based on the patient’s medical history, combined with one or two ordinary ECGs, can usually make a judgment about whether it is a myocardial infarction, and usually, it is almost always not.