Symptoms of Heart disease

Symptoms of Heart disease

The list of signs and symptoms mentioned in various sources for Heart disease includes the 13 symptoms listed below:

• Angina - and its symptoms:
  • Chest discomfort
  • Chest pain
  • Brief pain episodes - often 2-5 minutes
  • Pain worsens on exercise
  • Pain relief from rest
• Shortness of breath
• Indigestion
• Palpitations
• Chest pain
• Arrhythmias
• Light-headedness
• Fainting
• more information...»

Research symptoms & diagnosis of Heart disease:

• Overview -- Heart disease
• Diagnostic Tests for Heart disease
• Home Diagnostic Testing
• Complications -- Heart disease
• Doctors & Specialists
• Misdiagnosis and Alternative Diagnoses
• Hidden Causes of Heart disease
• Other Causes -- causes of these or similar symptoms

Heart disease: Complications

Review medical complications possibly associated with Heart disease:

• Heart attack
• more complications...»

Diagnostic Testing

Diagnostic testing of medical conditions related to Heart disease:

• Physical exam
• Stethoscope
• Electrocardiogram (ECG or EKG)
• Stress test - also called treadmill test or exercise ECG
• Echocardiography
• Nuclear scan
• more tests...»

Research More About Heart disease

Do I have Heart disease?

• Heart disease: Introduction
• Heart disease: Diagnostic Testing to confirm diagnosis
• Home Diagnostic Testing
• Alternative diagnoses and misdiagnosis for Heart disease
• Failure to Diagnose Heart disease
• How serious is it?
• Treatments for Heart disease
• More about Heart disease

Heart disease: Medical Mistakes

• Hypertension -- Health Mistakes
• Cholesterol -- Health Mistakes
• Obesity -- Health Mistakes
• Diabetes -- Health Mistakes
• Metabolic Syndrome -- Health Mistakes
• more mistakes...»

Heart disease: Undiagnosed Conditions

Diseases that may be commonly undiagnosed in related medical areas:

• Chronic Major Diseases that are commonly Undiagnosed:
  • High Cholesterol -- Undiagnosed
  • Heart Disease -- Undiagnosed
  • Cancer -- Undiagnosed
  • Depression -- Undiagnosed
  • Type 2 Diabetes -- Undiagnosed
  • Type 1 Diabetes -- Undiagnosed
  • Hypertension -- Undiagnosed
  • Hemochromatosis -- Undiagnosed
  • Metabolic Syndrome -- Undiagnosed
• more undiagnosed conditions...»

Home Diagnostic Testing

Home medical tests related to Heart disease:

• High Blood Pressure: Home Testing
  • Home Blood Pressure Hypertension Tests
  • Home Blood Pressure Monitors
  • Home Heart Tests
• Heart Health: Home Testing:
  • Heart Rate Monitors
  • Irregular Heartbeat Detection
  • Heart Electrocardiogram (ECG)
  • Home Blood Pressure Testing
  • Home Cholesterol Testing
• Home Andropause Tests
• Prostate Health: Home Testing:
  • Home Prostate Tests
  • Home PSA Antigen Tests
  • Home Testosterone Tests
• more home tests...»

Wrongly Diagnosed with Heart disease?

The list of other diseases or medical conditions that may be on the differential diagnosis list of alternative diagnoses for Heart disease includes:

• Depression
• Dilated cardiomyopathy
• Lyme disease
• more diagnoses...»

See the full list of 3 alternative diagnoses for Heart disease

Heart disease: Research Doctors & Specialists

• Cholesterol Specialists:
  • Clinical Lipidology (Cholesterol/Triglycerides)
  • Diabetes, Endocrinology & Metabolism
• Cardiac (Heart) Specialists:
  • Cardiology (Heart specialists)
  • Pediatric Cardiology (Child Heart Specialists)
  • Cardiothoracic Surgery
  • Clinical Cardiac Electrophysiology
  • Interventional Cardiology
• more specialists...»

Research all specialists including ratings, affiliations, and sanctions.

More about symptoms of Heart disease:

More information about symptoms of Heart disease and related conditions:

• Other diseases with similar symptoms and common misdiagnoses
• Tests to determine if these are the symptoms of Heart disease
• Symptoms that may be caused by complications of Heart disease
• Underlying causes of Heart disease
• Associated conditions for Heart disease
• Risk factors for Heart disease

Other Possible Causes of these Symptoms

Click on any of the symptoms below to see a full list of other causes including diseases, medical conditions, toxins, drug interactions, or drug side effect causes of that symptom.

• Angina - see all causes of Angina
• Arrhythmias - see all causes of Arrhythmias
• Brief pain episodes - see all causes of Pain
• Chest discomfort - see all causes of Chest discomfort
• Chest pain - see all causes of Chest pain
• Chest pain - see all causes of Chest pain
• Fainting - see all causes of Fainting
• Indigestion - see all causes of Indigestion
• Light-headedness - see all causes of Dizziness
• Pain relief from rest - see all causes of Pain
• Pain worsens on exercise - see all causes of Pain
• Palpitations - see all causes of Palpitations
• Shortness of breath - see all causes of Shortness of breath

Medical Books Online about Heart disease

Medical Books Excerpts Excerpts of published medical book chapters related to Heart disease are available from published medical books for more detailed information about Heart disease.

Copyright notice for book excerpts: Copyright © 2008 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. All rights reserved.

Related videos for Heart disease

Patient Surveys for Heart disease

• Patient Profile Survey
  Take Survey  View Results
• Survey about the symptoms of your Heart disease
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Symptoms of Heart disease: Online Medical Books

16 MEDICAL BOOKS ONLINE! Review excerpts from medical books online, free, without registration, for more information about the symptoms of Heart disease.

Cardiac arrest, ventricular fibrillation: Signs and Symptoms
(Professional Guide to Diseases (Eighth Edition))

Loss of consciousness, absent pulse, apnea, anuria, cool extremities

» READ BOOK EXCERPT ONLINE »

Source: Professional Guide to Diseases (Eighth Edition), 2005

Cardiac arrhythmias: Signs and symptoms
(Professional Guide to Diseases (Eighth Edition))

Signs and symptoms of cardiac arrhythmias include palpitations, fainting, light-headedness, dizziness, chest pain, shortness of breath, changes in pulse patterns, paleness, and the temporary absence of breathing. However, the patient with a cardiac arrhythmia may be asymptomatic until the development of sudden cardiac arrest.

» READ BOOK EXCERPT ONLINE »

Source: Professional Guide to Diseases (Eighth Edition), 2005

Cardiac tamponade: Signs and symptoms
(Professional Guide to Diseases (Eighth Edition))

Cardiac tamponade classically produces increased venous pressure with jugular vein distention, reduced arterial blood pressure, muffled heart sounds on auscultation, and pulsus paradoxus (an abnormal inspiratory drop in systemic blood pressure greater than 15 mm Hg). These classic symptoms represent failure of physiologic compensatory mechanisms to override the effects of rapidly rising pericardial pressure, which limits diastolic filling of the ventricles and reduces stroke volume to a critically low level. Generally, ventricular end-systolic volume may drop because of inadequate preload. The increasing pericardial pressure is transmitted equally across the heart cavities, producing a matching rise in intracardiac pressure, especially atrial and end-diastolic ventricular pressures. Cardiac tamponade may also cause dyspnea, diaphoresis, pallor or cyanosis, anxiety, tachycardia, narrow pulse pressure, restlessness, and hepatomegaly, but the lung fields will be clear. The patient typically sits upright and leans forward.

» READ BOOK EXCERPT ONLINE »

Source: Professional Guide to Diseases (Eighth Edition), 2005

Heart failure: Signs and Symptoms
(Professional Guide to Diseases (Eighth Edition))

Left-sided: dyspnea, orthopnea, crackles, wheezing, hypoxia, respiratory acidosis, cough, cyanosis, palpitations, arrhythmias, elevated blood pressure, pulsus alternans; right-sided: dependent peripheral edema, hepatomegaly, splenomegaly, jugular vein distention, ascites, weight gain, arrhythmias, hepatojugular reflux, nausea, vomiting, anorexia, fatigue, dizziness, syncope, weakness

» READ BOOK EXCERPT ONLINE »

Source: Professional Guide to Diseases (Eighth Edition), 2005

Rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease: Signs and symptoms
(Professional Guide to Diseases (Eighth Edition))

In 95% of patients, rheumatic fever characteristically follows a streptococcal infection that appeared a few days to 6 weeks earlier. A temperature of at least 100.4° F (38° C) occurs, and most patients complain of migratory joint pain or polyarthritis. Swelling, redness, and signs of effusion usually accompany such pain, which most commonly affects the knees, ankles, elbows, or hips. In 5% of patients (generally those with carditis), rheumatic fever causes skin lesions such as erythema marginatum, a nonpruritic, macular, transient rash that gives rise to red lesions with blanched centers. Rheumatic fever may also produce firm, movable, nontender, subcutaneous nodules about 3 mm to 2 cm in diameter, usually near tendons or bony prominences of joints (especially the elbows, knuckles, wrists, and knees) and less often on the scalp and backs of the hands. These nodules persist for a few days to several weeks and, like erythema marginatum, often accompany carditis.

Later, rheumatic fever may cause transient chorea, which develops up to 6 months after the original streptococcal infection. Mild chorea may produce hyperirritability, a deterioration in handwriting, or an inability to concentrate. Severe chorea (Sydenham’s chorea) causes purposeless, nonrepetitive, involuntary muscle spasms; poor muscle coordination; and weakness. Chorea always resolves without residual neurologic damage.

The most destructive effect of rheumatic fever is carditis, which develops in up to 50% of patients and may affect the endocardium, myocardium, pericardium, or the heart valves. Pericarditis causes a pericardial friction rub and, occasionally, pain and effusion. Myocarditis produces characteristic lesions called Aschoff bodies (in the acute stages) and cellular swelling and fragmentation of interstitial collagen, leading to formation of a progressively fibrotic nodule and interstitial scars. Endocarditis causes valve leaflet swelling, erosion along the lines of leaflet closure, and blood, platelet, and fibrin deposits, which form beadlike vegetations. Endocarditis affects the mitral valve most often in females; the aortic, most often in males. In both females and males, endocarditis affects the tricuspid valves occasionally and the pulmonic only rarely.

Severe rheumatic carditis may cause heart failure with dyspnea; right upper quadrant pain; tachycardia; tachypnea; a hacking, nonproductive cough; edema; and significant mitral and aortic murmurs. The most common of such murmurs include:

❑ a systolic murmur of mitral insufficiency (high-pitched, blowing, holosystolic, loudest at apex, possibly radiating to the anterior axillary line)

❑ a midsystolic murmur due to stiffening and swelling of the mitral leaflet

❑ occasionally, a diastolic murmur of aortic insufficiency (low-pitched, rumbling, almost inaudible). Valvular disease may eventually result in chronic valvular stenosis and insufficiency, including mitral stenosis and insufficiency, and aortic insufficiency. In children, mitral insufficiency remains the major sequela of rheumatic heart disease.

» READ BOOK EXCERPT ONLINE »

Source: Professional Guide to Diseases (Eighth Edition), 2005

Cardiac tamponade: Signs and symptoms
(Handbook of Diseases)

Cardiac tamponade typically produces increased venous pressure with neck vein distention, reduced arterial blood pressure, muffled heart sounds on auscultation, and paradoxical pulse (an abnormal inspiratory drop in systemic blood pressure greater than 15 mm Hg). These classic signs represent failure of physiologic compensatory mechanisms to override the effects of rapidly rising pericardial pressure, which limits diastolic filling of the ventricles and reduces stroke volume to a critically low level.

Generally, ventricular end-systolic volume may drop because of inadequate preload. The increasing pericardial pressure is transmitted equally across the heart cavities, producing a matching rise in intracardiac pressure, especially atrial and end-diastolic ventricular pressures.

Cardiac tamponade may also cause dyspnea, diaphoresis, pallor or cyanosis, anxiety, tachycardia, narrow pulse pressure, restlessness, and hepatomegaly, even though the lung fields are clear. The patient typically sits upright and leans forward.

» READ BOOK EXCERPT ONLINE »

Source: Handbook of Diseases, 2003

Heart failure: Signs and symptoms
(Handbook of Diseases)

Heart failure is usually classified by the site of failure (left-sided, right-sided, or both). It may also be classified as systolic or diastolic. These classifications represent different clinical aspects of heart failure, not distinct diseases.

Left-sided heart failure primarily produces pulmonary signs and symptoms; right-sided heart failure primarily produces systemic signs and symptoms. However, heart failure often affects both sides of the heart.

Left-sided heart failure

Clinical signs of left-sided heart failure include dyspnea, orthopnea, crackles, possibly wheezing, hypoxia, respiratory acidosis, cough, cyanosis or pallor, palpitations, arrhythmias, elevated blood pressure, and pulsus alternans. Symptoms are due to decreased left ventricular output, which results in fluid accumulation in the lungs.

Right-sided heart failure

Clinical signs of right-sided heart failure include dependent peripheral edema, hepatomegaly, splenomegaly, jugular vein distention, ascites, slow weight gain, arrhythmias, hepatojugular reflex, abdominal distention, nausea, vomiting, anorexia, weakness, fatigue, dizziness, and syncope. Right-sided heart failure is often caused by disorders that increase vascular resistance (such as pulmonary embolism or stenosis, or hypertension).

Systolic failure

Systolic failure occurs when the heart’s ability to contract effectively decreases. This causes a decrease in the cardiac output and the ejection fraction. Clinical signs of systolic dysfunction include an S₃ gallop, normal or low blood pressure, and an ejection fraction of less than 40%.

Diastolic failure

Diastolic failure occurs when the heart has a problem relaxing. The heart can’t properly fill with blood because the muscle has become stiff and noncompliant. Clinical signs of diastolic failure include an S₄, elevated blood pressure, and a normal or near normal ejection fraction.

Complications

Complications of heart failure typically include pulmonary edema, venostasis with a predisposition to thromboembolism (associated primarily with prolonged bed rest), cerebral insufficiency, and renal insufficiency with severe electrolyte imbalance. (See Pulmonary edema: How to intervene.)

» READ BOOK EXCERPT ONLINE »

Source: Handbook of Diseases, 2003

Rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease: Signs and symptoms
(Handbook of Diseases)

In 95% of patients, rheumatic fever characteristically follows a streptococcal infection that appeared a few days to 6 weeks earlier. A temperature of at least 100.4° F (38° C) occurs.

Joint pain

Most patients complain of migratory joint pain or polyarthritis. Swelling, redness, and signs of effusion usually accompany such pain, which most commonly affects the knees, ankles, elbows, or hips.

Skin lesions and nodules

In 5% of patients (generally those with carditis), rheumatic fever causes skin lesions, such as erythema marginatum. This nonpruritic, macular, transient rash gives rise to red lesions with blanched centers.

Rheumatic fever may also produce firm, movable, nontender, subcutaneous nodules ⅛" to ¾" (0.5 to 2 cm) in diameter, usually near tendons or bony prominences of joints (especially the elbows, knuckles, wrists, and knees) and less commonly on the scalp and backs of the hands. These nodules persist for a few days to several weeks and, like erythema marginatum, often accompany carditis.

Chorea

Later, rheumatic fever may cause transient chorea, which develops up to 6 months after the original streptococcal infection.

Mild chorea may produce hyperirritability, a deterioration in handwriting, or an inability to concentrate. Severe chorea causes purposeless, nonrepetitive, involuntary muscle spasms; poor muscle coordination; and weakness. Chorea always resolves without residual neurologic damage.

Carditis

The most destructive effect of rheumatic fever is carditis, which develops in up to 50% of patients. It may affect the endocardium, myocardium, pericardium, or the heart valves.

Pericarditis causes a pericardial friction rub and, occasionally, pain and effusion. Myocarditis produces characteristic lesions called Aschoff bodies (in the acute stages) and cellular swelling and fragmentation of interstitial collagen, leading to formation of a progressively fibrotic nodule and interstitial scars.

Endocarditis causes valve leaflet swelling, erosion along the lines of leaflet closure, and blood, platelet, and fibrin deposits, which form beadlike vegetations. Endocarditis usually affects the mitral valve in females and the aortic valve in males. In both sexes, endocarditis affects the tricuspid valves occasionally and the pulmonic valve only rarely.

Severe rheumatic carditis may cause heart failure with dyspnea, right-upper-quadrant pain, tachycardia, tachypnea, significant mitral and aortic murmurs, and a hacking, nonproductive cough.

The most common murmurs include:

❑ a systolic murmur of mitral insufficiency (high-pitched, blowing, holo-systolic, loudest at apex, possibly radiating to the anterior axillary line)

❑ a midsystolic murmur caused by stiffening and swelling of the mitral leaflet

❑ occasionally, a diastolic murmur of aortic insufficiency. Valvular disease may eventually result in chronic valvular stenosis and insufficiency, including mitral stenosis and insufficiency and aortic insufficiency. In children, mitral insufficiency remains the major after-effect of rheumatic heart disease.

» READ BOOK EXCERPT ONLINE »

Source: Handbook of Diseases, 2003

Article Excerpts About Symptoms of Heart disease:

Heart disease can often have no symptoms, which is why it is called a "silent" killer. But, there are some symptoms that can alert you to a possible problem. Chest or arm discomfort, especially while under stress or during activity, is a classic symptom of heart, and is a warning sign of a heart attack. Women or older people may also have fatigue (with no reason why), shortness of breath, dizziness, nausea, or abnormal heart beats (or palpitations). (Source: excerpt from HEART AND CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE: NWHIC)

Heart disease as a symptom:

For a more detailed analysis of Heart disease as a symptom, including causes, drug side effect causes, and drug interaction causes, please see our Symptom Center information for Heart disease.

Medical articles and books on symptoms:

These general reference articles may be of interest in relation to medical signs and symptoms of disease in general:

• Diagnostic Testing for a Diagnosis of Heart disease
• Research Alternative Diagnoses for Heart disease
• How serious is Heart disease?
• More about Heart disease
• Online Diagnosis
• Self Diagnosis Pitfalls
• Pitfalls of Online Diagnosis
• Symptoms of the Silent Killer Diseases
• Lesser known silent killer diseases
• Books on signs and symptoms

Full list of premium articles on symptoms and diagnosis

About signs and symptoms of Heart disease:

The symptom information on this page attempts to provide a list of some possible signs and symptoms of Heart disease. This signs and symptoms information for Heart disease has been gathered from various sources, may not be fully accurate, and may not be the full list of Heart disease signs or Heart disease symptoms. Furthermore, signs and symptoms of Heart disease may vary on an individual basis for each patient. Only your doctor can provide adequate diagnosis of any signs or symptoms and whether they are indeed Heart disease symptoms.