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Our Expert on Heart Care
Q: If I'm having chest pain, should I go to the ER right away or wait to see if it goes away?
Ask Our Expert About Chest Pains
A:
Don’t ignore chest pain, waste time trying to diagnose it yourself, or hoping it will go away! Get to an ER immediately, and if you have an aspirin, chew it on the way. If it turns out you aren’t having a heart attack, don’t worry about it or be embarrassed. It’s better to be safe than sorry, considering the possible consequences of not getting you need if you are indeed having a heart attack.
Heart attacks are the number 1 killer of adults in the U.S., responsible for 1/2 million deaths each year. Two out of four people who suffer a heart attack do not get to the hospital early enough to receive treatment that can prevent heart muscle damage or death. The key to surviving a heart attack is having angioplasty to open the blocked artery as soon as possible.
Time is muscle! The longer the heart artery is blocked, the more heart muscle damage is occurring. The American Heart Association recommends that, if you’re having a heart attack, the blocked blood vessel causing it should be opened within 90 minutes of your arrival in the emergency department. This recommendation has been supported by a recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine showing that rapid access to angioplasty does indeed save lives.
At Lehigh Valley Hospital,
this goal is consistently met. We’ve implemented what is called MI Alert for Heart Attacks, a rapid angioplasty program created several years ago by our ER doctors and cardiologists for treating heart attack victims. A patient with chest pain has an EKG within 10 minutes of arrival in the ER to determine if they are having a heart attack. If they are, they are sent to our cardiac catheterization laboratory to have the blocked artery opened right away. The “gold standard” for having an artery opening procedure is 90 minutes after arrival. Thanks to MI Alert for Heart Attacks, our average is consistently less than 90 minutes.
Symptoms of a heart attack include:
- Chest pain that may or may not radiate to the jaw, neck, arms or back
- Severe or unusual sweating
- Shortness of breath during exercise or at rest
- Heartburn.
- Remember, if you are suffering from any of the above symptoms, don’t wait! Get to an Emergency Room that can provide you with the very best treatment right away!
This page last updated 2/12/08 04:08 PM
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