Symptoms of Heart Disease.

The symptoms of heart disease depend on the cause, severity, and type of heart disease. Common signs and symptoms of heart disease (not just of heart attack) include the following:

• Chest pain
• Abdominal distress (including nausea)
• Bluish color to the skin
• Enlarged neck veins
• Fainting
• Palpitations (unusually strong heart beats)
• Shortness of breath
• Swelling in the legs
• Weakness and fatigue
• Coughing
• Loss of appetite and weight loss

Other signs and symptoms are also possible. More information on Heart Disease.

Signs that a heart attack is happening:

• Chest discomfort. Most heart attacks involve discomfort in the center of the chest that lasts more than a few minutes or that goes away and comes back. It can feel like uncomfortable pressure, squeezing, fullness or pain.
• Discomfort in other areas of the upper body. Symptoms can include pain or discomfort in one or both arms, the back, neck, jaw or stomach.
• Shortness of breath. This feeling often comes along with chest discomfort, but can occur before the chest discomfort.
• Other signs. These may include breaking out in a cold sweat, nausea or lightheadedness.

DO NOT WAIT MORE THAN 5 MINUTES BEFORE CALLING 911 FOR HELP.

More Help Recognizing and Responding to Heart-related Symptoms

Symptoms. We have two sets of resources for you to use in understanding and responding to symptoms related to heart disease.

• Find your symptom
  
• Here you will learn what’s going on in the body, risks, diagnostic symptoms, treatment – even side effects of proposed treatments.
  
• Symptom Manager: SOS.
• Broken down into Adults, Women, and Children, the Symptom Manager helps you decide if your symptoms require emergency medical care at an Emergency Center, or if they can wait until a doctor’s visit can be scheduled, or if there are simple self-management strategies you can use.