There are no definite heart attack early warning signs; they are all easily mistaken as having some other cause. Often, it is only when you look back after having a heart attack, that you realise the signs were there, but that you ignored them.

The normal cause of a heart attack is when a clot gets jammed in a narrowed artery and stops the blood supply to your heart. So until a clot has formed and become lodged, your only symptoms will be due to the reduction of the blood supply caused by the narrowing of your arteries. So the early signs of a heart attack are the same as the signs of heart disease.

The challenge with heart disease is that it progresses slowly and therefore you get used to the symptoms and even when they affect your life you adapt to them, never thinking that they are the symptoms of heart disease or a possible future heart attack.

The three main early noticeable physical symptoms are:

Shortness of Breath

Fatigue

Chest Discomfort

However they may not all occur, they might not occur consistently and they more than likely will be mild in the beginning.

If one day you get breathless going up stairs, you will probably put it down to being tired, to working too hard, to age, or some other insignificant factor. You may even promise yourself that you will start doing some exercise to get fit! But what normally happens is that you just shrug it off. After a few weeks you will not even think of the breathlessness as being out of the ordinary. You will just accept it as the way you are.

This will be the same for any fatigue or discomfort. So although the symptoms are present, you dismiss them as something unimportant and just live with them.

The only real indicator of heart disease is your blood pressure.

The problem is that the symptoms of high blood pressure are one and the same as the symptoms of heart disease so the only way to know if you have high blood pressure is to use a blood pressure monitor. This does not have to be done by a health care professional, in fact a number of recent reports have shown that taking your own blood pressure at home on a regular basis is a more accurate indicator of your health than having it taken once or twice a year (if that) by a professional. If you do not own a monitor you should invest in one as soon as possible. If you do own one but don't use it, then start today!