Chest pain or tightness and jaw pain, like that of a toothache, may be early indicators of a heart attack. A heart attack requires emergency medical attention.
When blood flow to your heart is significantly or completely blocked, you’re having a
.
Two symptoms that are common in heart attacks are:
. This is sometimes described as a stabbing pain, or a feeling of tightness, pressure, or squeezing.
. This is sometimes described as feeling like a bad toothache.
According to the
, women have jaw pain that’s often specific to the lower left side of the jaw.
A silent heart attack, or silent myocardial infarction (SMI), doesn’t have symptoms with the same intensity as a standard heart attack.
According to
, the symptoms of SMIs can be so mild that they’re not thought of as problematic and may be ignored.
SMI symptoms may be brief and mild, and can include:
pressure or pain in the center of your chest
discomfort in areas, such as your jaw, neck, arms, back, or stomach
shortness of breath
cold sweat
lightheadedness
nausea
sudden weakness or numbness that’s often on one side of the body, and often in the face, arm, or leg
sudden confusion
sudden difficulty speaking or understanding someone else speaking
sudden vision problems (one or both eyes)
sudden unexplained severe headache
sudden loss of balance, lack of coordination, or dizziness
If you’re experiencing these symptoms, or someone else is experiencing them, seek immediate emergency medical help.
Symptoms of a heart attack may include chest and jaw pain.
If you’re experiencing them, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re having a heart attack. However, you should still seek emergency medical treatment.
It’s always better to get emergency care that you might not have needed than it is to ignore, or not take seriously, the signs of a potential heart attack.