This detailed article is adapted from an article written by a woman who had a heart attack in the hope it will help all women recognize symptoms of a potential heart attack.
This woman wanted to warn women that it’s true that women rarely have the same dramatic symptoms that men have when experiencing a heart attack…you know, the sudden stabbing pain in the chest, the cold sweat, grabbing the chest and dropping to the floor that we see in the movies.
This woman had a completely unexpected heart attack about 10:30 p.m. with NO prior exertion, NO prior emotional trauma that one would suspect might have brought it on. It happened about 1-1/2 hours after she had spent a pleasant 2 hours rehearsing with a choral group.
She was sitting all snuggly & warm on a cold evening, with her purring cat in her lap, reading an interesting story her friend had sent her, and actually thinking, “A-A-h, this is the life, all cozy and warm in my soft, cushy recliner with my feet propped up.”
A moment later, she felt that awful sensation of indigestion, when you’ve been in a hurry and grabbed a bite of sandwich and washed it down with a dash of water, and that hurried bite seems to feel like you’ve swallowed a golf ball going down the esophagus in slow motion and it is most uncomfortable. You are thinking you shouldn’t have gulped it down so fast and needed to chew it more thoroughly.
She thought, next time I will drink a glass of water to hasten its progress down to the stomach. But she found none of this did any good because her esophagus and throat muscles were already in spasm and it hurt her to swallow. This was her initial sensation–then it dawned on her, she hadn’t taken a bite of anything since about 5:00 p.m.
After that had seemed to subside, the next sensation was like little squeezing motions that seemed to be racing up her SPINE (hind-sight, it was probably her aorta spasming). It gained speed as the spasms continued racing up and under her sternum (breast bone, where one presses rhythmically when administering CPR). This process continued on into her throat and branched out into both jaws.
AHA!! NOW she stopped puzzling about what was happening. We all have read and/or heard about pain in the jaws being one of the signals of a heart attack happening, haven’t we?
She said aloud to herself and the cat, “Dear God, I think I’m having a heart attack!” She lowered the footrest, dumping the cat from her lap, started to take a step and fell on the floor instead. She thought to herself, “If this is a heart attack, I shouldn’t be walking into the next room where the phone is or anywhere else…….but, on the other hand, if I don’t, nobody will know that I need help. And if I wait any longer, I may not be able to get up.”
She pulled herself up with the arms of the chair, walked slowly into the next room and dialed the paramedics. The operator verified her address immediately and asked her symptoms.
She told the operator she was having a heart attack due to the pressure building under the sternum and radiating into her jaws. She didn’t feel hysterical or afraid. The operator said she was sending the paramedics over immediately and asked if the front door was near to her, and if so, to unbolt the door and then lie down on the floor where they could see her when they came in.
No, she didn’t take an aspirin, as she was allergic to it, but she did take a 100 mg magnesium oxide capsule…which she kept handily in reach on the kitchen counter…which was a small detour on her way to the front door with about 3/4 glass of water to get it dissolving ASAP into her bloodstream.
She had been told that Magnesium relaxes blood vessels as it dissolves to get them expanded to let blood get through the constriction of the vessels. She then laid down on the floor as instructed and lost consciousness. She did not remember the medics coming in, their examination, lifting her onto a gurney or getting her into their ambulance, or hearing the call they made to the hospital ER on the way. She did briefly awaken when they arrived and saw that the cardiologist was already there in his surgical blues and cap, helping the medics pull her stretcher out of the ambulance.
The doctor was bending over her asking questions (probably something like “Have you taken any medications?”) but she couldn’t make her mind interpret what he was saying, or form an answer, and she nodded off again. She did not wake up again until the cardiologist and partner had already threaded the teeny angiogram balloon up her femoral artery into the aorta and into her heart where they installed two side-by-side stents to hold open her right coronary artery. She was then taken into the CCU, and found herself looking up at the anxious faces of her children.
Since she had been a patient at the hospital for a previous TIA treatment, they had her emergency information in their system and had called her children. She spent two days in CCU and two in a general ward, and then was discharged.
I know it sounds like all her thinking and actions at home must have taken at least 20-30 minutes before calling the paramedics, but actually it took perhaps 4-5 minutes before the call. Both the fire station and hospital were only minutes away from her home. The Cardiologist was already in scrubs ready to go to the operating room for another procedure which helped him get going on restarting her heart (which had stopped somewhere between her arrival and the procedure) and installing the stents.
Why has she shared all of this with so much detail? Because she wanted all of you to know what she learned firsthand, as a health care professional and as one who has lived through a heart attack due to:
1. Being aware that something very different was happening in her body, not the usual men’s symptoms, but inexplicable things happening (until her sternum and jaws got into the act ).
It is said that many more women than men die of their first (and last!) heart attack because they didn’t know they were having one, and commonly mistake it as indigestion. They take some anti-“heartburn”, and go to bed hoping they’ll feel better in the morning when they wake up. This sometimes does not happen. Your symptoms might not be exactly like hers, so she advises you to call the paramedics if ANYTHING is unpleasantly happening that you’ve not felt before. It is better to have a “false alarm” visitation than to risk your life guessing what it might be!
2. Note that she said “Call the Paramedics,” Ladies. TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE! Do NOT try to drive yourself to the ER. You will be a hazard to others on the road, and so is your panicked husband/friend who will be speeding and looking anxiously at what’s happening with you instead of the road. They will get the attention of a police officer who will pull you over for speeding, more wasted time.
Do NOT call your doctor–he doesn’t know where you live and if it’s at night you won’t reach him anyway, and if it’s daytime, his assistants (or answering service) will tell you to call the Paramedics. He doesn’t carry the equipment in his car that you need to be saved! Your doctor will be notified.
3. Don’t assume it could not be a heart attack because you have a normal cholesterol count as she did. Research has discovered that a cholesterol elevated reading is rarely the cause of a heart attack (unless it’s unbelievably high, and/or accompanied by high blood pressure.) Heart attacks are usually caused by long-term stress and inflammation in the body, which dumps all sorts of deadly hormones into your system to sludge things up in there. Of course, family genetics can also be a factor.
A serious note about heart attacks: Women should know that not every heart attack symptom is going to be the left arm hurting. Be aware of intense pain in the jaw line, or even pressure there and under sternum, or “indigestion” symptoms, especially if you haven’t eaten in several hours. You may never have the first chest pain during the course of a heart attack, but heaviness/pressure under the sternum is common.
Nausea and intense sweating are also common symptoms, but not necessarily in women. 60% of people who have heart attacks while they are asleep do not wake up.
Pain in the jaw can wake you from a sound sleep. If you can take low dose aspirin or similar product, consider keeping it by your bedside and taking one if you feel any of the symptoms described in this article.
Be careful and be aware. The more information we know, the better chance we could survive a heart attack.
Share this with your women friends, it might save their life.