How To Detect A False Heart Attack
The false heart attack is characterized by chest pain, and that situation is already stressful. For anyone, chest pain is associated with a heart problem, which triggers alarms and anxiety.
However, chest pain doesn’t always come from the heart. In reality, most of the time, this type of pain does not mean something serious, but is associated with inflammatory or anxiety problems. In any case, due to the true possibility of a cardiac cause, it is carefully studied.
This is how the false heart attack appears. As its name implies, it is a clinical picture where the symptoms suggest the presence of a heart attack, but ultimately another process is happening in the body.
There are several syndromes that hide behind the false heart attack, and although medicine recognizes its manifestation as such, there is no concrete agreement on which diseases are false heart attacks and which are not. Perhaps the only consensus is that which recognizes hyperkalemia as the main cause.
Hyperkalemia is increased levels of potassium in the blood. When it appears, the patient feels chest pain and is accompanied by nausea or vomiting. The pain is so intense that it raises the suspicion of a heart attack. In addition, it is very common in diabetics and hypertensive people, which increases the assumption.
Laboratories for false heart attacks
A key issue in the medical care of patients with chest pain is the availability of nearby laboratories to run some basic tests. Among them, troponin and the ionogram.
Troponin analysis detects the presence of this protein in the blood, which is indicative of an acute myocardial infarction when it is above certain values. The test is not totally sensitive, but it is estimated that it can rule out up to 60% of chest pains that are not heart attacks.
This simple determination would improve hospital admissions and reduce false diagnoses. The fact is that it is not available in all health centers, and not all doctors request it.
The electrocardiogram is not as efficient as troponin in ruling out false heart attacks. Sometimes some study traces look like an ongoing heart attack, without being one. This is without taking into account that the electrocardiogram must be read correctly, unlike troponin, which expresses a round value.