# What does it feel like to have a heart attack?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-feel-like-to-have-a-heart-attack/663267>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [July 11, 2013, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-feel-like-to-have-a-heart-attack/663267 "2013-07-11T23:26:43Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![lavenderviolet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/cdc98d/32.png) [@lavenderviolet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lavenderviolet)\
**Post date:** [October 13, 2013, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-feel-like-to-have-a-heart-attack/663267/41 "2013-10-13T06:05:14Z")

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> [@AaronX](#):
>
> This makes me feel heart attacks are more common than we think, but not as serious. I thought heart attack meant you had 1 hour to live without treatment, and they couldn’t get better on their own.

Nope. Heart attacks vary in how serious they are depending on how much of your heart muscle is damaged (blocking an artery that supplies a large amount of your heart muscle vs. a small branch that only supplies a small amount of musclel)  
It is definitely possible to have a minor heart attack and survive even without treatment, though of course you would be more likely to preserve heart muscle with treatment.

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