Overview
Chest pain can be caused by cardiac or non-cardiac causes. However, it is very crucial to know how to identify and differentiate these causes. Heart-related chest pain can be due to angina, heart attack, heart valve problem, aortic dissection, myocarditis, and pancarditis. Firstly, we need identify the location of the chest pain. For heart-related chest pain, it will be at the central region and it is a diffused type of pain. Besides that, heart-related chest pain may radiate to the left side of the jaw, neck, shoulder, arm and occasionally to the back. The characteristics of heart-related chest pain will be heavy, tight, squeezing or choking in nature and commonly associated with profuse sweating or breathlessness. Usually, heart-related chest pain is exerted by activities or strong emotions. The heart-related chest pain can be relieved by resting and response quickly to nitrates, but if the pain does not resolve after rest or nitrate, please seek immediate medical attention!
