Clogged arteries do not always announce themselves with a dramatic emergency. In many people, the early signs can be quiet, confusing, or easy to blame on aging, tiredness, stress, or sitting too long.<\/p>\n
Arteries carry oxygen-rich blood from the heart to the rest of the body. When plaque builds up inside them, blood flow can become reduced. This may affect the heart, brain, legs, feet, or other organs depending on where the narrowing happens. Coronary artery disease can reduce blood flow to the heart, while peripheral artery disease often affects blood flow to the legs and feet.<\/p>\n
Here are six possible warning signs that should not be ignored.<\/p>\n
One of the most important warning signs is discomfort in the chest. It may feel like pressure, squeezing, fullness, heaviness, burning, or pain. Sometimes it appears during activity and improves with rest.<\/p>\n
This can happen when the heart muscle is not getting enough oxygen-rich blood. Mayo Clinic notes that narrowed coronary arteries can cause chest pain, shortness of breath, or even a heart attack.<\/p>\n
If chest discomfort is severe, lasts more than a few minutes, comes back repeatedly, or happens with shortness of breath, sweating, nausea, or pain in the arm, jaw, back, or shoulder, seek emergency help immediately.<\/p>\n
Not every heart-related symptom feels like chest pain. Some people notice shortness of breath, unusual tiredness, lightheadedness, nausea, or discomfort in the jaw, neck, back, arm, shoulder, or stomach.<\/p>\n
The CDC lists these as possible heart attack symptoms and reminds people that signs can appear differently in men and women.<\/p>\n
This is why sudden fatigue or breathlessness should not be ignored, especially if it appears with chest discomfort, cold sweat, dizziness, or pain spreading to the upper body.<\/p>\n
A very common sign of poor blood flow in the legs is pain or cramping that appears when walking and improves after resting. This is often called claudication.<\/p>\n
The pain may be felt in the calf, thigh, hip, or buttock. It happens because the muscles need more oxygen during movement, but narrowed arteries cannot deliver enough blood. Mayo Clinic describes leg pain while walking as a common symptom of peripheral artery disease.<\/p>\n
If you notice a repeated pattern like \u201cwalk \u2192 pain \u2192 stop \u2192 relief,\u201d it is worth speaking with a healthcare professional.<\/p>\n
Clogged arteries do not always announce themselves with a dramatic emergency. In many people, the early signs can be quiet,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":79,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tastykitchen.delicedcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tastykitchen.delicedcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tastykitchen.delicedcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tastykitchen.delicedcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tastykitchen.delicedcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=78"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tastykitchen.delicedcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80,"href":"https:\/\/tastykitchen.delicedcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions\/80"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tastykitchen.delicedcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/79"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tastykitchen.delicedcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=78"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tastykitchen.delicedcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=78"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tastykitchen.delicedcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=78"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}