I read a while ago (I forget where, sorry) that many heart attacks are small, and people don’t realize that they’ve had them.
If you don’t realize that you’ve had a heart attack, then how would you (or your doctor) later discover that you’ve had one?
I believe you can see evidence of a heart attack on an EKG after the fact.
A heart attack, whether big or small, whether detected or not, causes actual damage to the heart. Part of the heart muscle dies. And it stays dead.
This will have an effect on the function of the heart forevermore.
That is why it is so crucial for a person who even suspects (or better yet, has friends and family who suspect!) any kind of heart problem to call 911.
Seriously!
Paramedics, doctors, any medical personnel, even the janitors working in the ER, will tell you that they’d rather diagnose someone with a strained muscle or outrageous heartburn, rather than that person decide, “Oh, it’s nothing.”
Too often, the “Oh, it’s nothing” person will be found in his or her bed, dead.
IANAD, but my personal feeling is that a LOT of those so-called “undetected” heart attacks were brushed aside as a spicy bowl of chili, or a sore arm from lifting a heavy box, or a toothache. (I know some real hardheads who can really make up excuses!)
~VOW
A stress test will illustrate any damage done to the heart by a heart attack.
IIRC one article I read on heart attacks metoned that often a person will have one or more minor attacks in the days leading up to a major one - minor tingling in the left arm, dizziness, that sort of thing.
Friends of mine in medical school used to have to listen to heartbeat sounds (recording, I think) to identify various heart problems for one course. If part of your heart muscle has weakened, the beat sounds different - as do valve problems, etc.
Cardiac imaging i.e.by echocardiography can show changes consistent with a previous infarction.
EKGs are pretty good for showing old damage.
Cardiac serum markers like troponin typically return to baseline within a week or less, so are of value only in acute or subacute infarctions.
Of course, I could find an old infarct on autopsy, but that wouldn’t help you much. 
It is still possible to have no clinical evidence of a heart attack (it could be asymptomatic).
My mother-in-law had a heart attack without realizing it; she just felt kind of lousy. After feeling that way for a day or two, she went to the doctor. Through the blood tests and EKG, they determined that she had, indeed, suffered a heart attack, and wound up having to have a bypass done the next day.
My father-in-law had a period of unexpected fatigue. He knew it was unusual, and thought he needed a nap. When he mentioned it to a friend, the friend urged him to see the doctor. The doctor checked out the EKG and said he had a heart attack.
A lot of people have the idea that a heart attack must involve agonizing pain, grasping at the chest, and dramatically falling down. That’s what they see on TV. It’s not always so.
Same thing happened to my mother in law. She didn’t even really feel bad, she was just short of breath for awhile. When she finally went to the doctor, he was immediately able to tell she’d had damage to her heart.
As I understand it, women are more likely to have asymptomatic heart attacks than men.
My cousin had a backache for 3 days with no other symptoms. He thought it was because he had gone on some carnival rides with his step-son and hurt his back doing so. On the 3rd day the pain was so severe he couldn’t stand it and went into the ER. They told him he wasn’t having a backache, he was having a heart attack and he ended up having emergency surgery and 5 bypasses. The cardio doc told him he had over 90% blockage and had he not come in when he did he would have been dead within a few hours.:eek:
He had no other symptoms (chest pain, arm tingling, etc.).
How does a heart attack reveal itself as back pain?
One of my coworkers was feeling a little nauseated at work last week. He started to feel worse so he drove to his doctors clinic near his house (an hour from the office). Luckily that clinic is attached to the hospital and and shortly after he arrived there they rushed him through the emergency room and straight into surgery for the 60% blockage. He’s in his mid 30’s and in pretty good shape too.
Heart attacks are sneaky 
“Cardiac pain is often referred to areas of the body surface which send sensory impulses to the same levels of the spinal cord that receive cardiac sensation. This is true especially on the left side. The sensory nerve fibers from the heart connective tissue and blood vessel walls travel through the cardiac plexus, sympathetic chain, and up to the dorsal roots and ganglia of spinal nerves T1-T4. …The common sites of referred pain include the neck, jaws, shoulders, arms, and stomach.”
It is also possible to have pain from a non-cardiac source which leads to discovery of a myocardial infarction.
I know that he was told that he had a “womans heart attack” as his symptoms were not the type men usually have but women may.
Are there sensation nerves associated with the heart itself? If someone was poking at a heart, would the patient instead feel the sensation in various parts of their body? Do all organs work the same way? If a sensation were to be directly applied to the lungs, stomach, liver, etc, would the patient be able to point to where the sensation is or would they feel it in random places around their body?
I have a question, hopefully one of our medical types can answer this:
In the past 3 months I have seen 2 women drop dead of heart attacks. One thought she had food poisoning, the other “just didn’t feel right.” Neither of them had ANY reason to think that something serious was going on and neither had any history of heart problems. (Both were in their early 60s, if it matters.) By the time both of them collapsed, it was too late.
It’s my understanding that when you go to the ER, they check your blood for cardiac enzymes to see if you’ve had a heart attack. My question is this: why can’t/don’t “they” develop some kind of at-home test for this? Feel weird, prick your finger, 5 minutes later presto, it tells you if the enzymes are showing up in your blood. If they are, call 911; if they aren’t, drink some Pepto Bismol and chill out.
Women in particular don’t have the traditional symptoms of an MI … so what are we supposed to do? Run to the ER anytime we feel nauseous or just feel “off?”
Is the fact that there’s a chunk of dead tissue in there a problem? Can it go septic or necrotic or whatever? Do they ever have to go in and cut it out?
I’ll bet that you’ll be able to do this with you’re smartphone in less than ten years.
I was toying with making this question, or a variation of it, for a long time into a thread.
“Sensation ..to be applied…” is weird way of saying it, but I know what you mean.
The new thread: after you. 