What are the symptoms of heart disease?
Heart disease can be silent or present with exertional chest pain and breathlessness. In this video, Dr Ravi Assomull explains how symptoms develop and how heart attacks can occur suddenly.
Learn more about Heart disease or book a consultation with Dr Assomull – no GP referral needed, appointments typically within one working day.
Transcript
Patients with coronary heart disease can actually be asymptomatic. They may have no symptoms whatsoever. 50% of people who have heart attacks actually have never had symptoms prior to that.
Conversely, as the blockages in someone's coronary arteries gradually progress with time, typically to the point where they cause a 70 to 80% narrowing, you get restriction of blood flow on exertion, and this causes a symptom known as angina, which is chest pain that is brought on by any form of exertion and relieved by rest. The other symptom that obviously we need to let you know about is one of a sudden plant rupture that we see in an acute heart attack. This is when what is seemingly an innocent and benign-looking narrowing suddenly bursts and causes an acute blockage of a blood vessel, and that causes the symptoms of a heart attack, which are characterised by central crushing chest pain that radiates to the left arm or jaw, and is typically associated with other symptoms such as nausea and sweating.
