Tips to tell if it's angina or a heart attack

Most pain caused by angina is alleviated by rest. So, if you experience chest pain that either starts when you are sitting down or doesn't get better when you stop what you are doing, think heart attack. Similarly, if the pain is more severe than usual, or if it continues for more than 20 minutes or after you've taken your medication, you should call an ambulance. Other symptoms may include nausea and sweating.

• People experience heart attacks in different ways.
• In one major study of 400,000 people over four years, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, one in three patients admitted to the hospital with what was later confirmed to be a heart attack had no chest pain at all.
• Women and diabetics were among those least likely to have typical symptoms, more than half of whom had no chest pain.
• According to Dr. Ghada Mikhail, a consulting cardiologist, women are more likely to suffer unusual fatigue, shortness of breath, back pain or abdominal pain.

• Chewing one 325 ml standard aspirin tablet in those crucial moments before an ambulance arrives can help to minimize the damage caused by a heart attack.
• Aspirin works by reducing the "stickiness" of the platelets that are an important part of the body's blood-clotting mechanism, and so may stop a dangerous clot from progressing. But aspirin should not be taken for a suspected stroke in case it is hemorrhagic (caused by bleeding), which aspirin could exacerbate.
• Don't take aspirin if you are allergic to it, or if you are taking warfarin or other anti-clotting drugs.
• If you are with someone who is having a heart attack, check that the person is not allergic to aspirin, then ask where you can find some.
• If you are on your own, take aspirin only if there is some nearby. Do not search the house — you need to stay still.
• Take one aspirin tablet and chew it slowly instead of swallowing it. This is a faster way to get the drug into your bloodstream.