Medicine

Panic attack or heart attack: an ambulance paramedic named five striking differences

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Ekaterina Sinitsyna, an ambulance paramedic, told about how to distinguish a heart attack from a panic attack in her telegram channel.

First, let's deal with the terms and classic symptoms.

Panic attack (PA) is an excruciating attack of severe anxiety, which is accompanied by causeless fear in combination with various autonomic symptoms.

A panic attack is often accompanied by:

  • palpitations,
  • dizziness,
  • feeling of weakness
  • numbness in the limbs.

The causes of a panic attack can be stress, anxiety, general exhaustion of the body, hormonal disorders, CNS pathologies, and some somatic diseases. pictures.

The first signs of a heart attack:

  • discomfort, heaviness, pressure or pain in the chest area;< /li>
  • discomfort in the back, jaw, neck or arm;
  • stomach fullness, indigestion, heartburn;
  • feeling of suffocation;
  • sweating;
  • dizziness;
  • nausea and vomiting.

PA can occur at any time, even at rest, and heart problems usually occur during physical activity.
< br>PA begins without preliminary symptoms, sometimes for no reason at all, and the first “bells” of a heart attack often appear in a few days or even weeks.

With PA, the symptoms persist for no more than 20-25 minutes, after which they disappear, and with a heart attack it gets worse every minute.

You can cope with PA on your own, but a heart attack, as they say, will not cure itself, without an ambulance everything can end fatally.
—In medicine, there is no such thing that all diseases proceed exclusively according to the textbook – deviations from the standard clinical picture are always possible. Therefore, if for the first time you feel chest discomfort/pain, breathing problems, severe weakness accompanied by sweating,call an ambulance, the paramedic warned.
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The difference between a heart attack and a panic attack has become known

A heart attack or a panic attack: how to distinguish?

Ekaterina Sinitsyna Ekaterina Sinitsyna Medicine Ambulance paramedic