Chest pain
Definition:
Chest pain is discomfort or pain that you feel anywhere along the front of your body between your neck and upper abdomen.
Prevention:
- Achieve and maintain normal weight.
- Control high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes.
- Avoid cigarette smoking and secondhand smoke.
- Eat a diet low in saturated and hydrogenated fats and cholesterol, and high in complex carbohydrates, fiber, fruits, and vegetables.
- Get at least 30 minutes of moderate intensity exercise on most days of the week.
- Reduce stress.
Treatment:
If you suspect that you or someone you are with may be having a heart attack, call 911 for emergency services or go to the nearest hospital emergency room.
- While waiting for the ambulance, have the patient chew two baby aspirin or at least half of a regular aspirin — at least 160 mg. There is no evidence that taking more than this helps more, and the patient could have unwanted side effects if they take too much.
- It is important to chew the aspirin before swallowing it because chewing decreases the time the medicine takes to have an effect.
- Chewing an aspirin in the early stages of a heart attack may reduce the risk of death and it may also reduce the severity of the attack.