DALLAS – American Heart Association founds cocaine users will experience heart attack symptoms such as chest pain. The doctors said that younger ER patients having heart attack symptoms should admit whether they’ve recently used cocaine, which can cause similar symptom. Being honest can only save the lives of these patients. Certain heart attack treatments can be lethal to cocaine users.

Use of cocaine can cause anxiety, chest pain, and dizziness, shortness of breath, shivering, excessive sweating and nausea which are also the symptoms of heart attack.

“Not knowing the exact cause for the symptom and giving the wrong treatments could cause death,” said Dr. James Reiffel, the professor of clinical medicine at Columbia University Medical Center.

Most of the chest pain associated with usage of cocaine is not heart attack. Therefore it is better to monitor these patients in an observation unit for nine to twelve hours, said Dr. James McCord of the Henry Ford Medical System.

Researches show that chest pain associated with cocaine tends to pop up within three hours of consuming the drug. But the chemical can remain in your body for at least 18 hours and can cause more problems, said McCord.”The symptoms which the cocaine users experience are very similar to a heart attack,” said McCord.

The use of cocaine demands more oxygen for heart and thus steering up heart rate, increasing blood pressure and raising the heart’s contraction with each beat. By the mean time, cocaine denies the excessive oxygen to heart by contracting the blood vessels and making the blood more likely to clot and leads to heart attack.

Studies show that only one to six percent of patients with cocaine-associated chest pain will have a heart attack. Yet the doctors say it’s important to check out for anyone having cocaine associated chest pain.

“If you admit everything to the doctor, then you can save your valuable life,” said Dr. James Reiffel.Certain heart attack treatments such as Clot-busting drugs and Betablockers can be dangerous to the cocaine users as they alter the normal blood pressure level.

“Doctors should explain why it’s necessary for them to know if a patient has used cocaine,” said Reiffel. He said that the information regarding the use of cocaine will be kept as confidential and won’t be reported to government. “The doctor is not here to judge,” he added.

Drug counseling centers available in observation units varies from one hospital to other and it may help the cocaine-using patients to get rid of this habit, said McCord.

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