How do you tell the difference between chest pain from a heart attack or congestive heart failure and....?

chest pain from Pleurisy which I get from time due to chronic bronchitis.

Chest pain for pleurisy is typically more painful with deep inspirations. It lacks any element of shortness of breath, cold sweats, nausea/vomiting, and a sense of impending doom.

Cardiac pain can be but is just as often atypical with female patients. Typically cardiac pain is a heavy, full, or crushing pain (some people never call it "pain") at the central chest. It is rarely sharp. It rarely can be localized to one spot. It may radiate to the neck or jaw. It may involve both shoulders and radiate down the arms. It may also be felt between the shoulder blades. Cardiac chest pain almost always comes with some element of shortness of breath. It often is precipitated by exertion or emotional excitement and is improved with rest (e.g. worse with climbing stairs, better with sitting).

Of course if in serious doubt seek additional advice from a trained health professional. But all chest pain is not cardiac.

Good luck.

This is a question that you need to discuss with your doctor so that you are fully aware. I would talk to him(or her) as soon as is reasonably possible.

The difference is chest pain could be indigestion (air in belly)
If it is a heart attack it usually runs down the arm.
U need to put Vicks salve on chest for bronchitis and pull the mucus up.

Chest pain due to a heart attack tends to be more "crushing", as if an elephant was stepping on your chest. The pressure/pain also tends to be in the middle of your chest, behind your sternum. Other signs of heart attack include shooting pains to your left arm, shortness of breath, jaw/neck/head pain and extreme anxiety.

Pleurisy chest pains tend to be more sharp, stabbing in sensation. Those other symptoms of heart attacks usually aren't present with a pluerisy chest pain.

You leave the distinction up to health care professionals who have gone to school for a very long time to diagnose you. If you are having chest pain, this is an emergency and you need to get to an ER where they will tell you what your diagnosis is. Good luck.

You really can't tell the different, if you are en-counting any kind of chest pain you need to call the emergency room and describe your symptoms. Let emergency room nurse inform you as to whether you need to come in and see a doctor or not. The heart rate acts the same with both heart attack or congestive heart failure and can cause serious problems.

First of all CHF or congestive heart failure does not ordinarily cause chest pain. Second of all heart attack pain is usually more of a crushing or suffocating pain. It may or may not radiate and rarely radiates in females. It can be accompanied by nausea, shortness of breath and extreme sweating. Meantime pleurisy causes a sharp chest pain and will usually also have shortness of breath. Pleurisy is an infection in the pleural space which is between the lung and it's outer covering. It is NOT caused by bronchitis. Some of these folks that claim to be nurses really scare me and I pray they never have opportunity to treat me.

When you have a heart attack, you're not likely to be congested. I've had two. and my pain did radiate down both arms, up my throat. I've also had the pain in the middle of my back. This pain was severe and i broke out in a sweat and was nauseated both times. i know when you have CHF you can't hardly breath and are treated with steroids.
you should always have it checked out by your doc no matter what.

For heart attack,chest pain is excruciating and grapping in nature.
It can also radiate to right arm or jaw.There are also associated symptoms such as sweating.
For congestive heart failure,there is no chest pain if the patient has no concomitant ischaemic heart disease.
Pleuritic chest pain is felt over the affected side of the lung.The pain changes with the position of the patient and respiration.There are also constitutional symptoms such as fever,malaise and headache.