A FORMER Royal Bolton Hospital nurse has spoken out about the unrecognised symptoms of heart attacks in women.

Alison Fillingham, aged 49, from Horwich, had a heart attack in June.

However the mother-of-one dismissed her symptoms — pain in her neck and jaw —and put it down to "indigestion" or "a pulled muscle".

It was only when the pain increased, that she told her sister who rang an ambulance.

But her symptoms were thought by paramedics to be a "panic attack".

Mrs Fillingham said: "I had just been taking paracetamol for a few days to ease the pain but one morning before work the pain went worse.

"I rang my sister and she rang an ambulance but I thought I was just being a bit dramatic.

"There was no urgency but I was taken to hospital and it was only after various scans and blood tests that I was diagnosed with having had a heart attack."

In research carried out by the British Heart Foundation it was revealed that women have a 50 per cent higher chance than men of receiving the wrong initial diagnosis following a heart attack.

The research, carried out at the University of Leeds, using the UK national heart attack register found that overall, almost one-third of patients had an initial diagnosis which differed from their final diagnosis.

Dr Chris Gale, who worked on the research, said: “We need to work harder to shift the perception that heart attacks only affect a certain type of person.

"Typically, when we think of a person with a heart attack, we envisage a middle aged man who is overweight, has diabetes and smokes.

"This is not always the case; heart attacks affect the wider spectrum of the population – including women.”

Retired staff nurse Mrs Fillingham, who now works as a home care worker, added: "I always thought of heart attacks in middle aged portly men with symptoms of sweating, pain down the arm, clutching the chest and falling to the floor—it never came to my mind that the symptoms I was having was a heart attack."

Following her diagnosis Mrs Fillingham underwent a coronary artery bypass and said she feels "very lucky".

She added: "Royal Bolton Hospital were fantastic to carry out the tests that they did even though I had arrived with no urgency, but their experience saved me from possibly one day having heart failure.

"I wanted to raise awareness because people don't know the symptoms of heart attacks they think of TV scenes were people fall to floor and its a sudden attack, its just not like that.

"Hopefully now people and women will notice the warning signs and act fast.

"It is better to be safe than sorry."