Fatigue, overeating, constipation, and cold can trigger myocardial infarction, so be alert if you have these symptoms!

Author: Tang Fakuan, Chief Physician of the Eighth Medical Center of the General Hospital of the Chinese People's Liberation Army

Reviewer: Zhu Dan, Chief Physician, Peking University Third Hospital

With the improvement of our living standards and the increase of work pressure, the incidence of myocardial infarction shows a clear increasing trend.

According to statistics, there are approximately 500,000 new cases in my country each year, and the total number of cases reaches nearly 2 million.

1. What factors in daily life may induce myocardial infarction?

First, overwork or mental stress.

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Because excessive fatigue or tension will suddenly increase myocardial oxygen consumption and increase the load on the heart, and there may be certain problems with our blood vessels themselves, so the blood vessels cannot continue to expand to increase myocardial oxygen supply, and myocardial infarction will occur at this time.

Another is that the blood vessels are hardened, but not so serious. However, due to excessive fatigue or tension, coronary artery spasm is induced, so the blood vessels are blocked due to spasm, thus inducing acute myocardial infarction.

Second, overeating.

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When overeating, high-fat, high-calorie foods enter the body and will cause increased blood lipid levels and blood viscosity in a short period of time, leading to thrombosis, which can easily cause acute myocardial infarction.

I once met a patient like this who suffered an acute myocardial infarction after overeating, followed by cardiac arrest. After the hospital's timely and comprehensive treatment, it took seven days to rescue him...

Third, constipation in the elderly.

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For older people, because they have been less active for a long time and have a more delicate diet, they will suffer from habitual constipation. When they strain to defecate, it will lead to increased abdominal pressure and sympathetic nerve excitement, thus inducing acute myocardial infarction. This is true. Therefore, we require the elderly to pay special attention to keeping their bowels unobstructed.

For young people, they generally exercise more and are less likely to suffer from constipation. If they do suffer from constipation, it is likely that there are other problems, and constipation generally does not cause myocardial infarction.

Fourth, cold stimulation.

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This situation usually occurs at four or five o'clock in the morning, in winter and spring, or when the climate changes. Acute myocardial infarction is prone to occur. It is mainly because the cold stimulation causes the body's sympathetic nerve excitement, causing vascular spasm, and thus inducing acute myocardial infarction.

Therefore, for patients with acute myocardial infarction, or elderly people, or patients with coronary heart disease, we recommend that they go out after 10 a.m. If you are used to going out early in the morning, we recommend that you wear a mask so that the air you inhale is not so cold and irritating, which is not easy to induce acute myocardial infarction.

In addition, staying up late, smoking, drinking, excessive work pressure, etc. may induce acute myocardial infarction. Therefore, in daily life, if we want to prevent acute myocardial infarction, the first thing we should pay attention to is to maintain good living habits.

2. What are the typical symptoms of myocardial infarction?

The most common symptom of myocardial infarction is ischemic chest pain, which is characterized by persistent, long-lasting, and unrelieved chest pain. Chest pain includes squeezing pain behind the sternum or pain under the xiphoid process. Pain is the main symptom. Of course, some patients have no symptoms, which is called painless myocardial infarction.

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In addition, some patients with acute myocardial infarction show symptoms of shock, such as low blood pressure, cold and clammy skin, sweating, and rapid heart rate; some patients with acute myocardial infarction show symptoms of difficulty breathing and shortness of breath, which are what we doctors call the symptoms of acute pulmonary edema and acute left heart failure.

There are also manifestations of malignant arrhythmias, such as the sudden onset of complete left bundle branch block, or sudden and frequent premature ventricular contractions, ventricular tachycardia, or even sudden fainting (ventricular fibrillation), which is also one of the main manifestations.

In addition, it should be emphasized that some patients present with atypical acute myocardial infarction, such as acute abdominal symptoms, such as stomach pain, while others present with toothache, shoulder pain, back pain, arm pain, etc.

Whether you are a doctor or an ordinary person, we should all know something about these atypical symptoms of acute myocardial infarction. Sometimes, we should not simply think that it is just a simple stomachache or other problems and miss the acute myocardial infarction, thus regretting it for the rest of our lives.

3. How to provide emergency treatment for myocardial infarction?

After a heart attack occurs, the patient should be allowed to rest immediately under supervision and relieve pain as soon as possible. Nitroglycerin can be taken sublingually. If one tablet does not work, another tablet can be taken after three to five minutes.

At the same time, call 120 immediately and go to the nearest hospital for emergency treatment. If we perform reperfusion therapy in time, almost all patients can be rescued and the prognosis is relatively good.

So what does reperfusion therapy mean? Myocardial infarction is caused by blockage of the blood vessels in the heart, so we use various means to open the blood vessels, which is called reperfusion therapy.

There are three main methods now: one is thrombolytic therapy, which is to use thrombolytic drugs to dissolve the acute thrombus formed to clear the blood flow in the blood vessels. Another is emergency percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI treatment), which is what ordinary people call heart stent surgery. It does not involve surgery, but uses a percutaneous vascular route to reach the occlusion in the coronary artery. A guide wire is passed through the occlusion, and the balloon is expanded and then the stent is placed to support it, thereby clearing the occluded blood vessel. The third is emergency surgical bypass surgery, but this method has relatively high technical requirements, and many hospitals cannot do it due to limited medical conditions, so there are relatively fewer patients who undergo emergency bypass surgery. At present, the first two treatment measures are the main ones, and the effects are definite.

So for our patients and their families, the most important thing is to seek medical treatment in a timely manner, seek medical treatment nearby, and choose appropriate treatment methods under the guidance of a doctor.