Individuals who experience cardiac tamponade often describe one or more of these symptoms:

• Sharp chest pain, often related to pericarditis, dissipating by the time the more severe cardiac tamponade condition develops 
  
  
• Shortness of breath, sometimes as a result of breathing shallowly on purpose to avoid chest pain but usually, once cardiac tamponade has developed, related to reduced blood flow
  
  
• Forward-leaning posture due to pain and/or the need to catch one’s breath
  
  
• Weakness and/or fatigue
  
  
• Bluish tint to skin (cyanosis)
  
  
• Anxiety
  
  
• Swelling in the abdomen

Clinical signs, which may not be directly evident to the patient or through observation, include:

• Falling arterial blood pressure
  
  
• Rising venous blood pressure (which causes the distended jugular veins in the neck as returning blood can't flow into the heart)
  
  
• Tachycardias (rapid heart rhythms) and muffled heart sounds
  
  
• Narrowed pulse pressure (a decrease in the difference between systolic and diastolic measurements)
  
  
• Significant decline of pulse volume and systolic blood pressure during inhalation