How do the symptoms of heart attack differ between men and women?
The symptoms of heart attack in a man are intense chest pain, pain in the left arm or jaw and difficulty breathing. A woman may have some of the same symptoms, but her pain may be more diffuse, spreading to the shoulders, neck, arms, abdomen and even her back. A woman may experience pain more like indigestion. The pain may not be consistent. There may not be pain but unexplained anxiety, nausea, dizziness, palpitations and cold sweat. A woman’s heart attack may have been preceded by unexplained fatigue. Women also tend to have more severe first heart attacks that more frequently lead to death, compared to men.
