Chest pain can be severe. It may be caused by temporary poor blood flow to the heart (angina) or a sudden blockage in the coronary arteries resulting in a heart attack.
High blood pressure reduces blood and oxygen flow to your heart, causing heart disease. Furthermore, the reduced blood supply to the heart can result in:
- Chest pain (also known as angina).
- A heart attack means that the blood supply to the heart is cut off, and the heart muscle begins to die due to a lack of oxygen. The longer blood flow is restricted, the worse the damage to the heart.
- Heart failure is a particular condition in which your heart is unable to pump blood and oxygen to your other organs adequately.
What is Chest Pain?
Chest pain is a pain in any area of your chest. You may feel pain in your back, lungs, ribs, muscles, or the center of your chest. Chest pain can be sharp or dull. You may feel tightness achiness, or you may feel like your chest is being crushed or squeezed. Chest pain is often intermittent (lasting for seconds, minutes to hours), but it can also be chronic, which means it lasts six months or longer.
Symptoms
Depending on what’s causing the condition, chest discomfort might provide a variety of symptoms. In most cases, the problem has nothing to do with the heart – though there’s no way to know for sure without consulting a doctor.
Heart-related chest pain
Even though chest pain is frequently related to heart disease, many patients with the condition report a vague sensation that isn’t always diagnosed as pain. In general, chest discomfort caused by a heart attack or another type of cardiac disease can be described or linked to one or more of the following:
- Feeling pressure, fullness, burning, or tightness in your chest.
- Having pain that lasts more than a few minutes, gets worse with activity, goes away and comes back, or varies in intensity.
- The crushing or searing pain that spreads to your back, neck, jaw, shoulders, and one or both arms
- Shortness of breath
- Cold sweats
- Dizziness or weakness
- Nausea or vomiting
Possible causes of chest pain
- Muscle strain
Persistent chest discomfort can be caused by inflammation of the muscles and tendons around the ribs. If the pain worsens with activity, it might signify a muscular strain.
2. Injured ribs
Chest pain can be caused by rib injuries such as bruising, breaks, and fractures. An accident that fractured a rib may have caused you to hear a snap or suffer excruciating pain.
3. Peptic ulcers
Peptic ulcers, or lesions in the stomach lining, normally do not cause severe discomfort, and they can cause persistent chest pain.
Peptic ulcer discomfort may typically be relieved by taking online antacids or in pharmacies.
4. Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD)
When the contents of the stomach travel back up into the throat, it is known as GERD. It can create a foul taste in the mouth and a burning sensation in the chest.
5. Asthma
Asthma is a common respiratory illness marked by inflammation of the airways, leading to serious complications like chest pain.
6. Collapsed lung
A lung could collapse when air builds up in the area between the lungs and the ribs, producing acute chest discomfort during breathing. Shortness of breath, weariness and a fast pulse rate are all symptoms of a collapsed lung.
7. Pneumonia
Chest discomfort can be acute or stabbing if you have a lung infection like pneumonia. Fever, chills, and coughing up mucus are other signs of pneumonia.
8. Heart attack
One of the five primary signs of a heart attack is chest discomfort. The following are the others:
- aches and pains in the jaw, neck, and back
- a feeling of dizziness or weakness
- aches and pains in the arms and shoulders
- Breathing problems
- Women who have had a heart attack may feel suddenly exhausted, nauseous, or vomit.
How to manage high blood pressure?
Several persons with high blood pressure can decrease their blood pressure or keep their levels safe by changing their lifestyle. Could you consult your healthcare team about it?
- Physical activity of at least 150 minutes per week (about 30 minutes a day, five days a week)
- Avoiding smoking
- Consuming a healthy diet, including limiting sodium (salt) and alcohol
- Keeping a healthy weight
- Managing stress
Conclusion
Making small changes to your habits, such as eating a lower sodium diet, getting regular exercise, maintaining a healthy weight, limiting alcohol intake, and quitting smoking, can lower your blood pressure by 10-20 mmHg or more. Consult your best Cardiologist doctor in Islamabad through marham.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
1. What does chest pain from high blood pressure feel like?
Pressure, fullness, burning, or tightness in your chest. The crushing or searing pain spreads to your back, neck, jaw, shoulders, and one or both arms.
2. What happens when blood pressure is too high?
Uncontrolled high blood pressure can lead to complications, including Heart attack or stroke. High blood pressure can cause hardening and thickening of the arteries (atherosclerosis), which can lead to a heart attack, stroke, or other complications.
3. How do you know if chest pain is muscular or heart-related?
A heart attack hurts differently from a strained chest muscle, and a heart attack might create a dull discomfort in the chest or an uncomfortable sense of pressure.
