How Angina Symptoms Can Differ in Women and Men

Because cardiovascular disease is the primary cause of death in the United States, it pays to pay attention to your heart. Every 40 seconds, someone has a heart attack. You don’t want it to be you.

Chest pain — also known as angina — is the classic symptom associated with a heart attack. However, every one out of five heart attacks is silent, meaning you don’t feel chest pain at all. If you’re a woman, you’re more likely to fall into the silent category. That’s because women experience the classic symptom of a heart attack, angina, differently than men do.

Mikhail Kapchits, MD, leads our cardiology team at Advanced Medical Care, and he encourages you to learn more about your cardiovascular health, even if you don’t think you have angina. If cardiovascular disease runs in your family, or if you have risk factors, we conduct tests to evaluate your heart health at our offices in Brooklyn and Queens, New York.

How is angina different for men and women? Here's a brief rundown.

Angina is heart disease

Regardless of whether you have symptoms, if you have angina, your heart struggles to get the oxygen-rich blood it needs. About 10 million people in the US have angina.

However, if you’re a woman, you might have symptoms other than chest pain — or you don’t experience chest pain at all. You may experience other sensations around your chest, such as:

• Pressure in your chest
• Squeezing
• Heaviness

These symptoms may come and go. Even if you don’t experience an acute, stabbing pain that Hollywood has trained people to interpret as a heart attack, you should get evaluated. Abnormal chest sensations could indicate a number of conditions that need attention.

Pain might be near your chest

When you have cardiovascular disease, angina may manifest in areas of your body that aren’t centered in your chest. Or you might mistake angina for indigestion or heartburn.

Instead of feeling the bulk of pain in your chest, women — and some men, too — may feel it radiate to nearby areas. Angina discomfort and pain can affect your:

• Jaw
• Neck
• Shoulders
• Arms
• Back
• Abdomen

You may even feel the pain in those areas more acutely than in your chest. Or you may not notice the chest pain at all.

You may just feel tired

Are you often fatigued, even though you think you’ve had a good night’s sleep? Fatigue may be a sign of angina, because your heart has to work harder than normal to pump blood and renew itself with oxygen. Daytime fatigue and grogginess could also be a symptom of sleep apnea, which raises your risk for a heart attack. 

In addition, you may find yourself struggling for breath. Again, if your arteries are clogged by plaques that make it hard to transport blood, your heart and other organs suffer. You could also feel lightheaded or even dizzy due to lack of blood to your brain.

You might feel nauseated

Another counterintuitive symptom of angina is nausea. If you feel stomach pain as well as nausea, you may not have a bug — it could be cardiovascular disease.

You might even vomit. Another angina symptom in women that could be mistaken for a viral infection is profuse sweating.

Are you aware of your heart health?

Don’t wait for an acute, stabbing pain in your chest before determining the state of your cardiovascular health. If you have a family history of heart disease, you experience odd symptoms that could be angina, or you’re at high risk for a heart attack due to other health conditions, come in for an evaluation with Dr. Kapchits.

Depending on your personal and family history as well as your current symptoms, we may recommend a number of tests. These could include:

• Electrocardiogram 
• Blood tests
• Chest X-ray
• Echocardiogram
• Stress testing
• Cardiac magnetic resonance imaging
• Coronary computed tomography angiography
• Invasive coronary angiography
• Provocation test

You may also need a special test to determine if you have coronary microvascular disease, which is more common in women than in men. These small blood vessels don’t always show up on standard tests. 

If you have evidence of cardiovascular disease, or you are at risk for it, we customize a treatment plan. This could include lifestyle changes, medications, or a combination of both.

Take care of your heart health if you have any symptoms of angina, even if you don’t have chest pain. For expert, patient-centered care, contact Advanced Medical Care for an angina evaluation today.