Women heart attack survivors may be as psychologically traumatized as victims of violence
I’ve sometimes heard doctors describe a heart attack as “small”. But only doctors – you’ll rarely hear a heart attack survivor say it. Doctors who talk this way are looking only at blood tests that assess heart muscle death, angiograms for coronary artery blockages, EKG readings for erratic heartbeats, and echocardiograms for valve damage or reduced heart function. If these test results on paper aren’t too deadly – well, it must be only a “small” heart attack.
But a study reported in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology last month reinforced what all heart attack survivors already know but their doctors may not: a heart attack can leave people as psychologically traumatized as victims of violence. (more…)
14 reasons to be glad you’re a man when you’re having a heart attack
I just finished reading a truly weird rant on another website written by a man decrying the ”sexism” of our society because all of our male doctors are now focused only on women’s heart disease – while apparently ignoring men completely.
It would surely be the fantasy dream of every woman heart attack survivor if this guy were actually telling the truth about all that attention women’s #1 killer is attracting. The frightening reality instead is that since 1984, more women than men have died each year from heart disease. In fact, the gap between men and women’s cardiac survival continues to widen.
In the interests of enlightening the unconscious among us about All Things Cardiac, I am happy to point out an asssortment of gender differences if you find yourself having a heart attack:
- 1. For women under the age of 50, heart attacks are twice as likely to be fatal as men’s.
- 2. Women are twice as likely as men to die within the first few weeks after suffering a heart attack, and 42% of women die within the first year following a heart attack compared to 24% of men.
- 3. Marital stress worsens the prognosis in women with heart disease – but not in men.
- 4. Men’s coronary artery plaque tends to distribute in clumps whereas women’s tends to distribute more evenly throughout artery walls. This results in women’s diagnostic tests frequently being misinterpreted as “normal”.
- 5. Women wait longer than men to go to a hospital Emergency Department when having a heart attack, and physicians are slower to recognize the presence of heart attacks in women because ”typical” patterns of chest pain and EKG changes are less frequently present.
Mayo Clinic’s ‘WomenHeart Science and Leadership Symposium’ featured in Time magazine
Two organizations very dear to my heart – literally – were featured last month in Time magazine’s Women and Health series. Both the world-famous Mayo Clinic and the not-for-profit organization called WomenHeart: The National Coalition For Women With Heart Disease were singled out because of a unique and life-altering program they host for women heart disease survivors. As a 2008 graduate of the annual WomenHeart Science & Leadership Symposium at the Mayo Women’s Heart Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, I was thrilled to see these two pioneering advocates for women’s heart health acknowledged by Time.
Each year, Mayo’s leading heart specialists welcome 50-70 heart attack survivors attending this five-day Symposium. I like to describe it as part world class cardiology training, and part community activism bootcamp. Time magazine describes it like this:
♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
“The idea is to educate women and empower them to spread their newfound knowledge about women and heart disease in their home communities. That’s the point, says the Symposium’s leader, Dr. Sharonne Hayes, director of the Mayo Women’s Heart Clinic.
“When she and three heart disease patients came up with the original idea for the Symposium back in 2002, they had one goal: to awaken patients and doctors to the impact heart disease has on the 42 million North American women currently living with it — and the families of the millions more who did not survive. (more…)
Amazing! A simple new tool that predicts how well you’ll do after discharge from hospital
AfterI was discharged from my hospital room in the Coronary Care Unit following a heart attack, I was puzzled because, other than a pile of reading material on heart-healthy eating, I was pretty well booted out the door with virtually no follow-up care plan once I got home.
When my friend Vivienne’s daughter Kate phoned me a few days later (Kate happens to be a cardiac nurse), I had an endless list of panicky questions for her about my surprisingly distressing ongoing chest pains along with dozens of other issues. I was convinced that another heart attack was imminent – an extremely terrifying prospect for a freshly diagnosed heart patient.
Canadian researchers in Ottawa have now developed a simple tool for hospital staff to predict the probability that patients like me, discharged from hospital to the community, will die or be unexpectedly readmitted within 30 days.
The study, published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, could help identify patients who may benefit from closer monitoring and care, so that serious health problems can be prevented.
The tool was developed by a group of Canadian researchers led by Dr. Carl van Walraven of the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, the University of Ottawa and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences.
The group examined detailed medical records from 4,812 people discharged from 11 Ontario hospitals between 2002 and 2006, and found that four factors could predict the risk of death or re-admission. (more…)
How women can have heart attacks without having any blocked arteries
Turns out that the kind of heart attack that I had (caused by a 99% blockage in the big left anterior descending coronary artery) – the so-called widowmaker heart attack - may actually be relatively uncommon in women. You might guess that fact by its nickname.
While cardiologists warn that heart disease can’t be divided into male and female forms, there are some surprising differences. Cardiologist Dr. Amir Lerman at the world famous Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, told the Los Angeles Times recently:
“When it comes to acute heart attacks and sudden death from cardiac arrest, women have these kinds of events much more often without any obstructions in their coronary arteries.”
Instead, it appears that a significant portion of women suffer from another form of heart disease altogether, one called coronary microvascular disease. It affects not the superhighway coronary arteries but rather the smaller arteries, called microvessels. These tiny arteries deliver blood directly to the heart muscle.
Ironically, I can now boast both diagnoses for the price of one - the widowmaker heart attack caused by a fully occluded coronary artery back in 2008, and now, after two years of puzzling, ongoing cardiac symptoms - like chest pain, shortness of breath, and crushing fatigue - a second diagnosis of Cardiac Syndrome X caused by coronary microvascular disease. (more…)
