A few months ago, Julie Charnet, a neurosurgery coordinator at a hospital, rose from her desk, walked a few steps, and felt a strange pressure in her chest. Being surrounded by posters about heart distress signs - which she had memorized years ago - she naturally ignored it and grabbed her water bottle. The next day, the squeezing returned whenever she stood up. No pain, fine breathing, just a recurring odd sensation that she eventually realized was, in fact, a heart attack.

Charnet's experience highlights a well-documented but still underappreciated fact: women's heart attack symptoms often differ from the classic chest-clutching Hollywood version. Instead, they may include pressure in the chest or rib cage, fatigue, shortness of breath, or even stomach issues. To help others avoid her near-miss, she offers a checklist of lesser-known risk markers: elevated hs-CRP (inflammation linked to narrowed arteries), high lipoprotein(a) (genetic bad cholesterol), elevated apolipoprotein B (plaque courier), and a high coronary artery calcium score (plaque pile-up).

Her advice: ask your primary care doctor about cardiac testing, provide every detail - even a three-day stomach ache - and if dismissed, find another doctor. Persistence, she notes, is key, because apparently the wall of posters wasn't enough. Julie Charnet is a healthcare worker and writer in Philadelphia, and she's now very familiar with her own warning signs.