Chest discomfort, pain, shortness of breath” are always confused between heart attack and heart burn ie acid indigestion or acid reflux. This is why often people experiencing a heart attack may confuse their symptoms for a simple case of acid reflux, and can land themselves in acute trouble. Vice versa, a chest pain caused by acid indigestion can also be confused for a heart attack by some patients.

Term used for acid indigestion that affects the food pipe. Which is situated next to the heart and its discomfort gives you pain and burning sensation in chest that is why it is often confused with heart pain or heart attack.

There is massive difference between heartburn and heart attack.
Heart Burn Heart Attack
Heartburn is a common condition that occurs when the acids from the stomach rise up and enter your food pipe, causing pain in the chest, and sometimes difficulty in breathing. This is a relatively minor condition and not related with heart that can be tackled by a quick dose of antacid or prevented by maintaining health eating habits.

On the other hand, a heart attack can be life-threatening. Heart attack occurs when the blood supply to or from the heart is interrupted due to the narrowing or blocking of an artery. This can mean that the crucial supply of oxygenated blood to interrupted and threatens a person’s life if timely treatment is not provided.

Precious time is lost in such cases because the disease could have better be controlled and managed just after minor attack without wasting time.
Things to do:
Patients should know that if the condition improves within a short span or time or after a few belches, one can be assured that the chest pain was due to acid reflux.
However, if the chest discomfort continues, one must not waste time and immediately rush to a hospital.

If a person is having such symptoms in epigastric or lower chest and similar type of symptoms have been there since many months or years it usually points to stomach or eosophagus problem.

But if these are recent, or there have been change in character of symptoms or such symptoms also occur on exertion like walking, climbing stairs and get better by taking rest, then most likely it is heart related and patient immediately needs to be rushed to a doctor and an ECG should be taken immediately.

Another important thing to remember is that if the so-called acidity or gas symptoms persist more than 20 minutes even after taking some antacid medicine, then most likely it is impending heart attack and patient should immediately rush to a nearby hospital for proper ECG.

Common acidity or gas problem mostly is due to overeating and lack of exercise. Doing regular yoga is one of best way to avoid such problems

The Tribune