Know the differences between gas pain and heart attack: Experts

Differentiating gas pain from heart pain is often the confusing part where many patients get delayed in reaching the emergency timely thinking it is a benign gas pain but some clear differences differentiate gas pain from heart pain.

Difference between gas pain and cardiac arrest

According to Dr Kala Jeethender Jain, Consultant Interventional Cardiologist, Yashoda Hospitals Hyderabad, gas pain usually occurs in the lower chest or abdomen and usually does not radiate to other parts, sometimes associated with nausea, and with a history of spicy food ingestion symptoms usually decrease or increase with certain postures subside on taking antacids or before trying to consult the doctor

Heart pain occurs in the central chest and typically, sometimes radiates to the left hand, jaw or upper back, it is usually associated with other cardiac symptoms like sudden breathlessness, sweating, giddiness, vomiting, etc.

Symptoms increase on walking or exertion, relieved by rest or by cardiac



medications

Prevention tips

One should not waste time in differentiating between the two, rather consulting a physician or a cardiologist sometimes saves lives through appropriate intervention

A simple ECG at that time differentiates between the two, but if the physician or cardiologist feels that it is cardiac pain; then repeating the ECG at later intervals can pick up very early attacks

If the patient has multiple comorbidities like long-standing diabetes, hypertension, family history of heart disease, then close supervision can diagnose early fatal heart attacks.

Simple antacids or proton pump inhibitors relieve gas symptoms whereas aspirin, statins, and nitrates help initially in alleviating the cardiac pain and buy time for diagnosing blockages responsible for heart attack by doing a coronary angiogram.

"A stitch in time saves nine", the idiom holds for this entity because many people waste a golden hour consulting a doctor confusing it with gas pain and losing lives.