Would you know if your heart was in trouble?

When Eugenie Smith's hands started tingling, she figured her biking gloves needed more padding. When she felt out of breath after a short walk on a treadmill, she assumed it was pneumonia. When her chest hurt, Smith chalked it up to indigestion.

She was wrong, wrong, wrong.

Smith was actually having a heart attack and needed three stents. She was 46 at the time and in otherwise perfect health.

While it may sound odd to miss the signs of something as monumental as a heart attack, cardiologists say they see it quite often.

It happens "ALL THE TIME!!!" Dr. Kenneth Rosenfield, an interventional cardiologist, wrote in an e-mail. "Every week. Seriously."

Rosenfield says a "Hollywood heart attack" — the kind where you collapse to the ground clutching your chest — is the exception, not the rule. "We need to do a better job of letting people know what are all of the types of symptoms that can indicate a heart attack," he says.

Smith couldn't agree more. Looking back at her heart attack eight years ago, she now sees she had symptoms for six months and missed them. "My message to everyone is simple: If your symptoms are frequent do not hesitate. Have them checked before it is too late," she says.

By Elizabeth Cohen, February 18, 201o. To see the full article, go to cnn.com.