Hey, what’s up? doctor prasoon here. Could that chest pain that you’re experiencing? could it be a heart attack? what is a heart attack and what is the difference between heart attack and cardiac arrest? What should you do if you are suspecting a heart attack in yourself or if you are trying to help a person who you think is having a heart attack? That is coming up in this video. This is Dofody, The best online portal in India where you can talk to doctors easily. So, let’s get started.
Your heart is actually a muscle that keeps on working every single minute. Its main function is to pump blood to different parts of your body and where does your heart get its energy from? Our heart has its own blood supply and these vessels are called coronary vessels. A heart attack happens when these coronary vessels get blocked by a clot or a plaque formation, when these vessels get blocked the blood supply to your heart is compromised. Your heart does not get the energy to beat and that is when you experience chest pain. This condition is called a heart attack and when this heart attack persists for a long time your heart suddenly stops beating and that condition is called cardiac arrest.
Many persons experience chest pain and chest pain could be due to many reasons, ranging from a simple heart attack to a pain in the muscles in between your ribs. The probability is that in most cases chest pain could be due to a heart problem. Now if the chest pain is due to a heart attack, the pay we’ll be characteristic. Now if the pain is due to a heart attack, you will be able to differentiate that pain from other causes of chest pain based on the characteristics of the pain itself. Pain due to a heart attack will be really discomforting for the patient. The patient often says that he feels like there is extra pressure on the chest, it is just like an elephant sitting on your chest. You will find it very difficult to breathe, there will be severe tension on your chest wall, shortness of breath, sometimes there will be even gasping for breath.
In most cases, this chest pain will be in the central part of your chest and sometimes it may radiate to your neck to the jaws and sometimes to the back and both the arms. This pain will be persistent and it usually lasts for more than twenty to thirty minutes. The person who is experiencing a heart attack might be sweating a lot, there will be a high level of anxiety an imminent sense of doom. Now there are two situations that you need to consider If the chest pain is experienced only when the person is exerting, that means when the pain is experienced only during walking, running, climbing stairs or doing some physical exercise and it is relieved when the person takes rest, then you should definitely talk to your doctor take an ECG and do the other tests which are recommended by your doctor.
This condition can often be managed with just medicine changes in your diet and lifestyle alone. But, there is a second situation if the pain is persistent and it is felt even when the person is resting then that is an emergency condition, You need to rush to an emergency department as soon as possible. Your heart muscle is crying out for blood and if the proper treatment can be started within 90 minutes, you can actually come out of the heart attack without causing any damage to your heart. So what should you be doing if you are experiencing such as pain with all the characteristics that I have mentioned earlier.
#1. The first step is that you should call for help, call the emergency number. In India the emergency number is 112 or you can even call directly for an ambulance by dialing 102.
#2. instead of lying down Sit in a comfortable position with a cushion on your backside and try to breathe in normally beer next and understand that there is no need to panic, if you are panicking you are causing more damage than actually helping yourself.
#3. Take aspirin. if you are about fifty years of age you might have heard of aspirin tablets. Taking 300 milligrams of aspirin it is one of the best things that you can do and if you don’t have it in your hands ask someone in your vicinity if they have aspirin or not. If you already have been a heart attack patient then your doctor might have prescribed you some medicines, take those medicines. Keep the small tablet called sorbets rate underneath your tongue and let it be there and don’t swallow it.
These three steps will go a long way in making sure that your heart suffers the least damage due to the heart attack and if you are trying to help a person whom you think is having a heart attack then do all these three steps. Make the person comfortable ask him to relax rest ask him to sit down ask him to breathe in properly. Give him aspirin 300 milligrams and ask him to chew it slowly call for help, arrange a vehicle, and check for the person’s breathing and pulse. If the person is unconscious you should definitely check out his breathing and then check his pulse. If you cannot appreciate a pulse, please start “CPR”. CPR stands for cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Continue the CPR till the person reaches the hospital or the emergency department or till a medical team accurate ambulance arrives at the spot. CPR should be done on persons who have no pulse and if the person is not breathing if the person is breathing properly and this conscious makes him, relaxed talk to him, comfort him, relieving anxiety, and take him to the hospital as soon as possible. There are some conditions that also causes chest pain which looks just like a heart attack.
Now, these conditions include an acid reflux disease piece of facial spasms a musculoskeletal disease. These are minor conditions and can easily be ruled out using ECG and other blood tests if your ECG and other blood test comes out normal and if you are a person who is not at a high risk of developing heart disease and these conditions can be effectively treated with the help of a gastroenterologist. In the case of acid reflux and other gastrointestinal problems and dermatologists if the problem is a musculoskeletal one.
So that’s it for this video, I really hope you like this one, please consider sharing this video with your friends and family. You could actually be saving a life if you really do that. If you have any doubts you can ask doctors by downloading the Dofody app and contacting them using chat, audio call and video call, if you haven’t subscribed to our youtube channel yet, please do it right now. So that’s it. I will see you in the next video, it is me Doctor Prasoon Signing off. Take care stay healthy and thank you so much for watching