{
  "id": 362274,
  "title": "Man Complains About Earache, Then Doctors Realize It’s His Heart",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/09/man-complains-about-earache-then-doctors-realize-its-his-heart",
  "topic": "health",
  "section": "Health & Medicine",
  "published": "2026-08-09T09:15:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Newsweek",
    "slug": "newsweek",
    "url": "https://www.newsweek.com/man-complains-about-earache-then-doctors-realize-its-his-heart-12291132"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "A cardiologist has cautioned about seemingly minor symptoms that could signal a severe heart condition. Dr. Kaustubh Dabhadkar, a preventive cardiologist based in North Carolina, explained that doctors typically focus on classic heart attack symptoms like chest pain and discomfort radiating to the arms or jaw. He emphasized that atypical symptoms—difficult to identify and easily overlooked—are far more dangerous.\n\nAccording to a 2025 study in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, over 99 percent of individuals who suffer from coronary artery disease, heart failure, or stroke had at least one risk factor before their diagnosis. These risk factors include high blood pressure, high cholesterol, elevated blood sugar, or a history of smoking.\n\nDuring a late-night shift in 2025, Dr. Dabhadkar recalled a peculiar case where a patient presented with an earache. As a busy cardiologist, he initially dismissed it as another routine complaint. However, upon reviewing the patient's EKG, he discovered that a major artery in the man's heart was blocked, indicating a heart attack.\n\nThe EKG results confirmed the presence of a serious blockage, and the patient was experiencing excruciating pain centered in his earlobe. The doctors immediately intervened and cleared the artery, which alleviated the patient's ear pain. Dr. Dabhadkar shared this anecdote to underscore that heart issues can manifest in unusual ways, as the heart's nerves connect to the same spinal region as the chest, shoulders, arms, neck, jaw, and upper abdomen, leading to referred pain.\n\nHe highlighted that heart attack symptoms can be highly atypical, such as cold sweats that persist despite cooling measures or other easily explained phenomena. Patients often try to rationalize their symptoms with mundane explanations, leading to delayed medical attention. Approximately one-third of heart attack patients do not experience chest pain, while the likelihood of chest pain diminishes with age, being rare after 85 years old.\n\nDr. Dabhadkar urged doctors to be vigilant about new, unexplained symptoms that begin with exertion and subside with rest, spreading rather than remaining localized. These symptoms, along with cold sweats, nausea, and a profound sense that something is gravely wrong, should prompt an immediate EKG. He emphasized that while such cases are rare, it is better to encounter occasional false alarms than to miss a genuine heart attack.",
  "summary": "Cardiologist Kaustubh Dabhadkar warns about atypical heart attack symptoms, noting that the heart has no private line for pain. He shares an anecdote of a patient who initially complained of an earache but later revealed they were experiencing a heart attack through an EKG, as the pain originated in the ear lobe. Dabhadkar emphasizes the importance of recognizing unusual symptoms, as many patients may attribute them to simpler explanations, leading to delayed evaluation. He highlights that roughly a third of heart attack patients may not experience chest pain, and symptoms can include jaw, teeth, or throat pain, upper back pain, and breathlessness or heavy fatigue, especially in older individuals.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}