5 Warning Signs of a Heart Attack Women Over 60 Miss

3. Discomfort in the Upper Back, Jaw, or Neck

Because women often do not experience the traditional center-chest pressure, they frequently miss the referred pain that radiates to other parts of the upper body. Your heart does not have as many pain receptors as your skin or muscles. When the heart muscle experiences a lack of oxygen, the pain signals travel up the spinal cord. Because the nerves serving the heart share pathways with the nerves serving the jaw, neck, back, and arms, your brain can easily misinterpret where the pain is actually coming from.

For women over 60, this discomfort often settles between the shoulder blades, in the lower jaw, or along the sides of the neck. The sensation is rarely described as a sharp, stabbing pain. Instead, you might feel a dull ache, a pulling sensation, a persistent pressure, or a tightness that feels almost like a muscle spasm. You might wake up in the middle of the night with a throbbing jaw and assume you were grinding your teeth, or feel an ache in your upper back and blame the mattress.

To distinguish this from ordinary muscle or joint pain, look at the context. Muscle pain typically worsens when you press on the affected area or move the joint in a specific way. Cardiac pain, on the other hand, remains relatively constant regardless of how you stretch, massage, or position your body. If you develop unexplained discomfort in your jaw, neck, or upper back—especially if it is accompanied by fatigue or breathlessness—treat it as a medical emergency.