When people hear about heart disease symptoms in women, they think about the Hollywood type of cases, where people grip their chest and fall on the floor.

It is true that one of the most common symptoms is chest pain, but not everybody experiences it. Even more, in the majority of cases women don’t experience any chest pain.

Common symptoms of heart disease in women

Usually women say that their chest pain is a kind of tightness, pressure or ache. Since the pain isn’t as intense, women have to be careful about mild pains as well. In case of the chest pain, it happens in the middle of the chest. It could last for a few minutes, but the pain could also come and go.

Heart Disease Symptoms in WomenThere are numerous patients experiencing symptoms of heart disease of women that don’t feel any pain. There has been a study conducted involving 515 women and 43% of them didn’t experience pain or pressure.

One third of the women experienced some pain, but they didn’t describe it as actual pain, but different kinds of discomfort. Although you might think that if you don’t experience pain you don’t have a heart attack, any discomfort might indicate heart disease.

Other common heart disease symptoms in women include some levels of shortness of breath, pain in the arms, sweating and so on. The chest pain and the shortness of breath could happen at the same time, or before it.

Actually, shortness of breath is more common in case of women, while sweating is common with men.

Atypical symptoms

Although the atypical symptoms are different from the symptoms of heart disease of women, it doesn’t mean that these aren’t common. These symptoms include back, jaw and neck pain, vomiting, nausea, weakness, indigestion, dizziness, fatigue, and lightheadedness. Nonetheless you shouldn’t think that there are only these symptoms.

In case of heart disease symptoms in women it is more common to experience atypical symptoms than in case of men. According to a study conducted in this matter it is twice as likely for women to experience atypical symptoms like nausea, indigestion or vomiting than in case of men.

Pre-heart attack symptoms

These are also known as prodromal symptoms of heart disease of women. They occur before the onset of a heart attack and this time period varies between 6 months and a week. Nonetheless there are some people who experienced them a year before the actual heart attack.

These heart disease symptoms in women include unusual fatigue, shortness of breath, sleep disturbance, chest pain, anxiety, indigestion, and pain in the upper back or the shoulder blades.

Although a lot of people don’t take shortness of breath as symptom of heart disease in women seriously, it might become the most common symptoms of heart diseases. According to a study, those people who experience shortness of breath are 3-5 times more likely to experience heart attacks.

As you can see, there are no insignificant heart disease symptoms in women; every symptom has a meaning for the body.