Signs of Heart Disease

Certain indications of pain are more disturbing than others. Chest pain, for instance. It is confused with a heart attack and though it is not the same, one cannot be dismissive about it and has to delve deeper to find the cause.

“Chest pain” is not the correct description when it involves discomfort within the torso area and the person undergoes feelings of being choked, pressure being applied etc. It can be of any duration and the occurrence is either regular or intermittent. These indications are therefore not enough by themselves to pronounce heart problems and there may be something more to it.

The many reasons and the distinguishing features to diagnose chest pain is mentioned in the article below. It also attempts to understand at what point should this pain be interpreted as something critical.

Palpitations
This is a common indication and the person refers to a feeling of his heart missing the regular beats and also inconsistent heart beats. These symptoms could be indicative of heart complications like premature atrial and ventricular complexes.

Lightheadedness or Dizziness
This can be due to weakness associated with blood loss, dehydration, kidney problems or other gastrointestinal and neurological issues. With so many contributing factors, identifying one single reason needs thorough investigation by a physician.

Syncope (loss of consciousness)
By itself, a brief loss of consciousness may not be something serious, but repeated episodes do warrant deeper analysis. Reasons of syncope could be metabolic, cardiac, neurologic and vasomotor. It is the cardiac type of syncope that can lead to a failure and death.
The good thing is most episodes of syncope are due to either metabolic or vasomotor and less threatening to life. In fact, the most common is the vasomotor syncope.

Fatigue, lethargy or somnolence
The feeling of tiredness, lacking desire to do anything is common and could be an indication of sleep deficit that needs to be covered up. Somnolence is the more worrying as one could suddenly drift off to sleep at work or even while driving. Since this happens during the daytime, it can be extremely embarrassing and also dangerous. Fatigue could be due to many reasons and one needs to get an investigation done by the physician to identify the exact cause. The heart may not be at risk and only a proper examination will help isolate the reason. The reasons for Somnolence are insomnia and sleep apnea. These indications are prevalent in persons with heart problems and need thorough investigation.

Shortness of breath
This can be considered as a significant indicator of a heart problem or a lung disorder. Patients with heart issues feel short of breath quickly with very less activity or even while just lying on their back. Some of them experience acute breathlessness at night and often wake up gasping. Lung disorders are due to asthma or bronchitis and can also due to the accumulation of fluid. Persons experiencing breathlessness should not ignore this symptom and get themselves examined to know the exact cause.