You've probably experienced this in your life: a crushing, stabbing, sharp, or dull pain in your chest.

Some chest pains can be fatal.

Clarify the causes of chest pain

Chest pain has many possible causes, and the common ones are coronary heart disease, pulmonary embolism, aortic dissection, pneumonia, shoulder periarthritis, intercostal neuralgia and so on.

Many complex problems can cause chest pain, and the severity is also different. Some kinds of chest pain are fatal, such as myocardial infarction, angina, aortic dissection, pulmonary embolism, pneumothorax, etc. If you have chest pain, do not ignore it; go to the emergency department for medical treatment immediately.

This type of chest pain needs medical attention

Coronary atherosclerotic heart disease (CAD) accounts for a high proportion of chest pain in emergency patients. Chest pain caused by coronary heart disease is one of the most serious and common pains of its kind.

If we compare the heart to a piece of land, the coronary arteries are like the river that irrigates the land. When the river is blocked, the land will "dry up".

Similarly, when atherosclerosis occurs in coronary arteries, resulting in narrowing or obstruction of the vascular lumen, myocardial ischemia, hypoxia, or necrosis may happen. Coronary heart disease occurs when one or more major coronary arteries narrow more than 50%.

The chest pain caused by coronary heart disease can be divided into angina and myocardial infarction.

Angina

It refers to the clinical syndrome mainly manifested by paroxysmal chest pain or chest discomfort caused by insufficient coronary artery blood supply and acute myocardial ischemia and hypoxia.

Myocardial infarction

It refers to acute myocardial ischemic necrosis. On the basis of the lesion of coronary artery, the blood flow in the artery is sharply reduced or interrupted, causing long and serious acute ischemia in the corresponding myocardium, which eventually leads to the ischemic necrosis.

Patients with a history of coronary heart disease should be highly suspected of having acute myocardial infarction once they have chest pain and tightness lasting more than 15 minutes and cannot be relieved by taking instant-effect pills of heart reliever.

How to save yourself if encountering acute myocardial infarction

When you suspect that you have an acute myocardial infarction, the following four points must be kept in mind:

1. Immediately call 120 for help;

2. Stop activities immediately and rest in bed or stay put and lie down.

3. Actively control your tension, and if conditions permit, you can inhale oxygen.

4. Do not take drugs at will: If you are dizzy or sweating, do not blindly take medicine. Hypotension may appear with myocardial infarction, so if conditions permit, you need to measure blood pressure.

After calling 120, you will be sent to the nearest hospital with treatment capacity by the ambulance. The hospital with established chest pain center should be the first choice, because the center can provide quick and standardized diagnosis and treatment pathway for patients with acute myocardial infarction, and the resuscitation will be faster and more standardized than the hospitals without chest pain center.

Preventing common causes of chest pain

To prevent chest pain, the most important thing is to control and treat basic diseases, such as high blood pressure and diabetes.

A healthy lifestyle is important to prevent coronary heart disease, a common cause of chest pain. Eating more fruits and vegetables, controlling smoking scientifically, exercising for 30 minutes a day, quitting smoking and limiting alcohol consumption, and drinking more water are all simple steps that can help prevent coronary heart disease and reduce chest pain.