Heart: why do your hands or chest pain?
Have you ever wondered why a heart attack, something occurring inside your chest, can feel like jaw pain? Or a burning sensation in your arm?
Allow me to explain.
Your heart doesn't have its own dedicated pain line to your brain. Instead, it shares nerve pathways with your chest, arms, neck, jaw, and upper abdomen.
When cardiac tissue becomes starved for oxygen, it sends distress signals. But these signals travel along crowded highways where other messages are already flowing.
Your brain receives the alarm.
It knows something is wrong. But it can't always pinpoint the source. This is called referred pain.
The heart's nerves enter your spinal cord at the same level as nerves from your left arm, your jaw, your neck, your upper back.
When cardiac distress floods these shared pathways, your brain interprets the signal based on its best guess.
Often, that guess points to the arm. Sometimes the jaw. Occasionally, the space between your shoulder blades. The pattern varies by person.
Some feel crushing pressure beneath the breastbone. Others experience what they dismiss as indigestion. Which is why pain caused by gas and the heart are often confused for each other.
Women, particularly, report symptoms in the neck, jaw, and back more frequently than the classic left-arm presentation.
The left arm remains the most recognized signal.
There is a good reason. The nerves serving the heart and the inner left arm share an especially close relationship at the spinal level.
But waiting for that specific symptom means ignoring the other languages your heart might speak. Pressure that spreads. Discomfort that radiates. Pain that appears where you least expect it.
Your heart communicates through a network it doesn't fully control. Which is why, when it comes to matters of the heart, being safe is always better than being sorry.
Any pain that resembles heart pain should be investigated and ruled out.
Reach out to me on twitter @rbawri Instagram @riteshbawriofficial and YouTube at www.youtube.com/breatheagain
