What should you do if you think you are having a heart attack?

Hi, I'm Dr Sukhneja. I'm an interventional cardiologist working in central London, and we often get asked, what should you do if you think you're having a heart attack? Well, patients who think they're having a heart attack may well be having a significant amount of chest tightness. You can feel like your chest is being crushed, that you've got a huge weight on your chest. Some people even say it's like having an elephant sitting on you. And that symptom may be moving up into your neck, through to your arm, maybe going through onto your back. Patients may also feel very sweaty, they can feel very cold, nausea can come on, they can feel like they're going to vomit and some patients do actually vomit. They feel that they can't do anything and the symptoms can be as extreme as that but can also be a little bit milder and sometimes patients ignore them thinking it's something that will go away, that perhaps it's indigestion, perhaps it's some reflux or just something they've had and therefore that it will go away but if you've got that suspicion if you are worried then what you should do is to immediately call for help and the best way to do that is to call for 999. Many times patients are having these symptoms and they think oh well I'll go along and see the doctor in the morning or perhaps call for 111 for some assistance but it is often much better and much safer for you as an individual to call for 999 and they will assess you on the telephone very promptly and they will send a rapid response unit or a very fast ambulance to you who can perform an ECG which is an electrical tracing of your heart to see what the problem is. If they see signs of a dangerous heart attack they will take you immediately to a hospital capable of treating that heart attack 24-7. So it's super important to call for an ambulance early. If you have access to aspirin at home then you should have some. Aspirin comes in a variety of doses But at the time of a heart attack you need to take a full 300 milligram dose and that can be taken as something that you dissolve in water or ideally if you're able to to chew it. If you've had angina for some time, and if you've been given a GTN spray, then you should use it at that time. You should take a seat. So if you feel dizzy or lightheaded you're less likely to pass out from it and to take the spray and put the spray under your tongue and that can take some practice and so it's worthwhile having thought about this or done this before the time actually comes and you have to lift the tongue to the roof of your mouth and to spray the tongue directly in. It's very common for patients to miss, even doctors in hospital or nurses doing this can miss the mouth and so it may take a couple times to do it. You should then also make sure that you are easily identified by the ambulance that's coming. So turn the lights on in your home and potentially open the front door in case you have something happen to you and the ambulance crew can't get into you. It would be worth then also calling for some other help from family members who may be nearby and therefore able to support you during this time. It can be very frightening and the ambulance crews are specially trained to deal with these situations and they will have medicines that they can give you that can help alleviate the pain and discomfort, and also help reassure you that you're going to be okay. Getting prompt treatment for a heart attack is absolutely essential, and getting you to a heart attack assessment centre is absolutely key, because if this is a ST elevation myocardial infarction or a heart attack where the artery's fully blocked, then getting that artery opened is absolutely essential for saving as much of the heart as possible and potentially saving your life. So the key thing is to recognize the symptoms, to call for help immediately, and if aspirin is available, then to take it, and if a GTN spray is available, to take that too.