Silent Heart Attack Signs to Look Out For as Cases Rise Among Younger Women

You can have a heart attack without recognising it for what it is, and sadly, under-the-radar attacks are more fatal for women than men, largely because the symptoms are different, easily mistaken for indigestion, stress, anxiety or fatigue. Research shows that patients presenting with prolonged or excessive fatigue sometimes have suffered a heart attack weeks or months before without even realising.

Silent ischemia accounts for 45 percent of all heart attacks. Tricky to spot, symptoms might include feeling faint, a pain which radiates up into your jaw, breathlessness, back pain and possibly, but definitely not always, some chest pain. They differ from symptoms normally associated with a heart attack which include chest pain which lasts more than a few minutes, cold sweats, nausea and vomiting, and severe shortness of breath. 

Silent attacks may go on for days, and a single episode is enough to weaken your heart. Just like any other heart attack it occurs where the blood flow to a section of the heart is temporarily blocked and as a result can cause scarring to the heart muscle.

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‘A silent heart attack can be just as dangerous as its more obvious counterpart,’ says Clinical Cardiologist Dr Deborah Ekery. ‘Because the event often leaves scarring and damage to the heart, it puts the person at greater risk of other heart problems. And because the person didn’t know to seek treatment, blood flow to the heart might not have been restored early on, and no medications were administered, so the impact could potentially be greater.’

So what can we do to help avoid this silent killer? The risk factors surrounding ischemia are the same as for a regular heart attack and are increased by high blood pressure, high cholesterol, smoking, obesity and sadly, age. A family history of heart disease can also be a contributory factor, as can excessive stress.