question about heart attacks

would a heart attack just happen? or would the symptoms carry on for two months?

[Goldie54]

I think that with most heart attacks there are some warning signs however vague they are. Some are instantaneous, as has been mentioned, from a "plaque rupture". If the blockage is severe enough when the plaque rupture occurs, then it will cause wide spread damage to heart muscle and subsequent death.

Also the symptoms for men and women are often different. Women may have nausea and vague pains in the chest or shoulder. Men may have the classic Hollywood type where you clutch your chest and the pain shows on your face as agony. This is the kind that I had. The pain was radiating from the left center of my chest, up into my jaw and down my left arm. I had a plaque rupture that totally blocked my ramus artery. Some people do not have a ramus artery.

Some heart attacks for men and women occur over the period of a week for men and women. This is when people are stubborn. They don't listen to their bodies but finally a family member convinces them to go to the ER.

[anacyde]

People usually have vague symptoms (they feel tired, sluggish, have "heartburn" symptoms, chest pains they dismiss as aches, or think they are run down or ill).  My father was sent home a number of times from emergency rooms from the time he was about 42.  They called it heartburn.  At 47 he had an emergency bypass, but by then his symptoms were "classic heart attack".

My brother in law had a "surprise" heart attack at 40.  He said he just felt tired a lot in the months leading to it.

Everyone is different.  Some are years in the making.  Some happen due to a plaque loosening and traveling to the heart, and I suspect those are the "surprise" ones.

They big thing is modifying risks.  Less plaques, less risk of any kind of heart attack.  This means proper diet and exercise, keeping tabs on cholesterol levels starting in your 20s and being proactive about your health.  Life offers no guarantees, but you can minimize risk.