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“What Was That?” A poem for heart attack survivors

11 May

Loyal British reader Lorraine Gradwell responded to a recent post here (Heart Disease Within “The Comfort of Denial“) by revealing that its post-heart attack emotional roller coaster message had resonated with her. Like many other women, this 58-year old Manchester mother of two felt frightened and confused after surviving what doctors call a “widow maker” heart attack last fall. And like many other women, her cardiac symptoms (crushing fatigue, light-headedness along with chest, neck, arm and shoulder symptoms) had been initially misdiagnosed as panic attacks. 

Lorraine explains:

“I had my heart attacks early last October; I didn’t know what was happening and this left me frightened that I could have more. I began a creative writing course the same week and wrote this poem.”   (more…)

Are you reading this sitting down? Don’t!

29 Apr

by Carolyn Thomas

A recent study of over 200,000 Australians suggests that you might want to stand up if you happen to be sitting down right now.  This study*, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, found that prolonged sitting is a health risk  independent of physical activity, and adds to the growing body of evidence that people who sit the most die the soonest – and, worse, you may not be able to exercise this effect away.

I don’t know about you, but I thought that last finding was disturbing.

In fact, Aussie researchers reported that not even getting regular physical exercise can outweigh the higher mortality risks associated with sitting more than 11 hours a day. Healthy or sick, active or inactive, the more people sat, the more likely they were to die sooner than non-sedentary people.  (more…)

How runaway stress hurts your heart – and your brain

25 Apr

There are few life events more stressful, in my humble opinion, than surviving a heart attack. Not only is the actual cardiac event a traumatic and overwhelming experience in itself, but what very few cardiologists  tell us before they boot us out the hospital door is how debilitating the day-to-day angst about every little subsequent bubble and squeak can actually be.  I can recall, for example, feeling virtually paralyzed with fear over unexpected chest pains following my heart attack (symptoms, I later learned from my cardiac nurse, that are often called “stretching pain” – common in recently stented coronary arteries). These symptoms turned out to be relatively benign – NOT the massive second heart attack I feared they signaled at the time.

David Ropeik teaches at Harvard and is the author of Risk! A Practical Guide for Deciding What’s Really Safe and What’s Really Dangerous in the World Around You. His observations about worry and chronic stress – such as living with heart disease – may ring true for you.

He recently asked his Big Think column readers:

“Want something else to worry about? Worry about worrying too much. The evidence is building that chronically elevated stress shrinks your brain.”   (more…)

Heart disease within “the comfort of denial”

17 Apr

Allie's puppy, Sam, at the lake

Like me, Allie is a heart attack survivor. In 2009, following  weeks of “normal” cardiac tests and some creative medical misdiagnoses (maybe it’s gall bladder? or dehydration?), the 52-year old ultimately  underwent triple bypass surgery. She was a thin and seemingly healthy mother of four, but she also had a significant family history of heart disease (her Dad had died of a heart attack at age 34, and her brother had survived heart valve replacement surgery 15 years earlier).  Since her heart attack, Allie’s now a blogger, too – usually describing her new plant-based  adventures in the kitchen.

I enjoyed reading one of her recent posts so much that I asked her if I could tell you about it here, too. This one’s not about heart-smart cooking, but about something cardiologists virtually never warn their patients about.  (more…)

A second opinion from Dr. Google

9 Apr

by Carolyn Thomas

I’ve often suspected that if only the E.R. doctor who misdiagnosed me with indigestion had bothered to just Google my cardiac symptoms (chest pain, nausea, sweating and pain radiating down my left arm), he and Dr. Google would have almost immediately hit upon my correct diagnosis: myocardial infarction, or heart attack. But instead, he pronounced that I was “in the right demographic” for acid reflux. I was sent home that day feeling horribly embarrassed for having made a fuss over nothing but a case of indigestion. As time went by, however, and my debilitating symptoms became truly unbearable, I turned to Dr. Google.

And that’s why I forced myself, despite my embarrassment, to return to the E.R. – but with the pronouncement of that E.R. doc still ringing in my ears:

“It is NOT your heart!”

Many physicians out there, however, are not happy when their patients consult Dr. Google to research troubling symptoms like mine. (more…)

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