• Anxiety
• Chest pain
  • May come and go (recur)
  • Pain may be sharp and stabbing (pleuritic) or tight and crushing (ischemic)
  • Pain may get worse when breathing and may be go away when you stand or sit up
  • Pain moves to the neck, shoulder, back, or abdomen
• Difficulty breathing
• Dry cough
• Fast heart rate (tachycardia)
• Fatigue
• Fever
• General ill feeling (malaise)
• Splinting of ribs (bending over or holding the chest) with deep breathing

The health care provider will use a stethoscope to listen to the heart and lungs. There may be a rubbing sound (not to be confused with a murmur), and heart sounds in general may be weak or sound far away.

Buildup of fluid in the covering of the heart or space around the lungs (pleural effusion) is not common after heart attack. But, it does occur in some patients with Dressler's syndrome.

Tests may include:

• Cardiac markers (CK-MB and troponin may help distinguish pericarditis from a heart attack)
• Chest CT scan
• Chest MRI
• Chest x-ray
• Complete blood count shows increased white blood cells
• ECG
• Echocardiogram
• ESR (sedimentation rate) is high