Female Heart Attack Symptoms: Calling 911

If you believe you’re having heart attack symptoms, dial 911 right away for an ambulance to take you to the emergency room. Wait no more than 5 minutes.
“As a doctor, I know from experience that when chest pains or other symptoms occur, most women are reluctant to call 911,” Goldberg says. “That’s precious time that we could be saving your heart muscle.”
Women often worry about being embarrassed if they’re not having a heart attack after all, she says. But embarrassment will pass without causing long-term damage; a heart attack may not.
Others don’t appreciate the seriousness of the situation. One of Goldberg’s patients had heart attack symptoms at age 57 and insisted on straightening up her house before she let her husband call 911. “This delay could have been fatal,” Goldberg says.
Calling for an ambulance is better than taking a taxi or having someone else drive you, Goldberg says. And unless you have absolutely no other option, you shouldn’t drive yourself. “You don’t want to pass out driving your car,” she says.
A big advantage to calling 911: emergency medical personnel can start treatment, such as oxygen, heart medication, and pain relievers, as soon as they arrive, says Mohamud Daya, MD, MS, an associate professor of emergency services at Oregon Health and Science University.
One more compelling reason to go by ambulance: “When you come into the emergency room with the [cardiac] monitor hooked up, you’re really taken seriously,” Goldberg says. “You look the part.”
Female Heart Attack Symptoms In the Emergency Room
When you reach the emergency room, describe your symptoms, but don’t offer your own conclusions, Goldberg says. “I wouldn’t go through this whole dissertation about how, ‘Oh, I thought it was a stomachache, I thought it was this.’ You should just tell the doctor how you feel. Don’t interpret it for them.”
If it doesn’t occur to the emergency room doctor to check for heart attack, be bold. Goldberg tells women to say outright: “I think I’m having a heart attack.” Because many doctors still don’t recognize that women’s symptoms differ, they may mistake them for arthritis, pulled muscles, indigestion, gastrointestinal problems, or even anxiety and hypochondria.
In short, female heart attack symptoms may be missed—and dismissed. When one of Goldberg’s patients entered the emergency room with such symptoms, doctors gave her antacids. “She said, ‘Listen, I’m diabetic and women’s heart disease symptoms can be different, and unless you give me an EKG, I’m not leaving this place.’ And the next day, she had a bypass.”
Of course, stomach pain could prove to be nothing more than a bad case of gastrointestinal illness. “But what I tell all my patients is, ‘It’s best to check out your heart first because a potential heart attack is life-threatening,’” Goldberg says.
And if your fear of cardiac problems turns out to be unfounded, don’t sweat it, she adds. Doctors would much rather diagnose you with indigestion than a heart attack.