by Jennifer Kirkman

Created on: September 25, 2009   Last Updated: September 28, 2009

Yes, heartburn and heart attacks can sometimes be related, other times not. In this article, I'd like to distinguish the differences for you.

Heartburn is often a very painful feeling in the throat and sometimes the chest area too. It feels like a searing pain as a heart attack would. The difference though, is that when a person has actual heartburn, and not a heart attack, the heartburn doesn't progress down the arms, make you sweat, and become nausea sets in along with vomiting. You feel faint and weak, and will sometimes even pass out with a heart attack. With just heartburn, you won't and the symptoms will not go any further.

Heartburn is not really associated with the heart. The reason it was termed "heartburn," is due to the fact that some of the symptoms of it are inside the chest area. This is merely due to acids setting into the chest. Acid over time, erodes the esophagus.

If chest pain on the other hand, lasts for at least a few minutes, and you are feeling other symptoms as I mentioned above, then you need to get help right away. The first thing they will do at the emergency department with a complaint of these symptoms, is to run a cardiogram.

Heart attacks also commonly cause you to feel shortness of breath, and heartburn won't. In a heart attack event, there can also be pains which radiate down the arms, back, and shoulder areas. Heartburn pain doesn't do this.Heartburn will also typically leave you with a sour taste in your mouth, and you will feel as though your food is coming back up. Also, heart attacks bring on a crushing pain as though a heavy object is sitting right on top of your chest. You often would feel smothered, whereas heartburn doesn't do that.

If you take an antacid when your reflux starts with the symptoms I have mentioned, the pains should diminish. With a heart attack if that's what is really going on, the pains will keep going on and progressing steadily.

Some heart attacks are not always real sudden. Some people that are found to have had a heart attack have had warning signs and symptoms for quite awhile. Heart attacks may begin simply as angina, (chest pains,) and eventually turn into a heart attack.

Preventing both problems of acid reflux and heart attacks are essential to your health. If you do have a lot of acid reflux problems, try changing your diet around avoiding spicy foods, greasy foods, and consuming meals that are smaller. Any person that is really overweight should lose their weight since this aggravates both the heart itself, and heartburn.

Trying to avoid exercises right after eating is important. Exercise may bring on some unpleasant symptoms if you have heartburn that feel like a heart attack since it can cause a lot of chest pains and also cause an acid like taste in the mouth, bringing on painful reflux.

Eating meals that are not in huge portions will help too. This often triggers an uncomfortable feeling in the stomach, and brings up a lot of reflux symptoms later. The pain that you actually have with a heart attack is below the breastbone actually.

So I hope that this article helps you to see the difference between the two since they really are quite different.

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