Category: Diagnosing – and misdiagnosing

– posts here focus on how difficult it often is to get an accurate heart disease diagnosis in women

When your artery tears – Spontaneous Coronary Artery Dissection

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 29 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥ @HeartSisters

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Laura, a 40-year old American heart attack survivor, told me this story of her own cardiac event:

“I was asleep and my symptoms woke me up. I had several simultaneous symptoms, but the first one seemed to be chest pain in the centre-left, somewhat under my left breast area. I’d never felt anything like it, so sometimes it’s hard to describe – it wasn’t sharp or crushing or burning, more like a dull pressure. I also had pain down the inside of my left arm that radiated up into the left side of my jaw and my left ear.

“I was very overheated, and I felt like I was going to throw up. The nausea and overheating faded, but the pain – chest, arm, jaw – stayed. In hospital, I was diagnosed with a heart attack caused by SCAD – spontaneous coronary artery dissection, treated with six stents.”

It used to be seen as a deadly condition that was only correctly diagnosed post-mortem.  In fact, the condition was first identified during an autopsy in 1931 after a woman in her 40s had died during a SCAD heart attack. Continue reading “When your artery tears – Spontaneous Coronary Artery Dissection” →

Yes, Virginia, there is such a thing as a broken heart

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 7 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥ @HeartSisters

After the first attack of severe chest pain, the 61-year old woman spent the night in the hospital’s Emergency Department hooked up to a heart monitor, felt better after a few hours, and was discharged in the morning.  Even though she had no cardiac risk factors, her blood tests showed that her cardiac enzymes were somewhat elevated, she described a “too-much-adrenaline” feeling, and she had also failed a cardiac treadmill stress test because of heart rate arrythmias.  No positive diagnosis was made at the time, although a condition called myocarditis was suggested.

Then nine uneventful years later, a second attack occurred, this one during a very traumatic period in her life, in hospital for a colon resection operation due to cancer. She describes it like this:   Continue reading “Yes, Virginia, there is such a thing as a broken heart” →

Allergic reaction or heart attack: can you tell the difference?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 6 Comments

For this, my 250th Heart Sisters post here, let’s look at shortness of breath. Dizziness. Nausea. Would you be able to tell if these are symptoms of an allergic reaction or a heart attack? Or could they be both? Overlapping symptoms can cause dangerous delays in correct diagnosis. And studies show that women are often misdiagnosed when having a heart attack, and that women tend to downplay their own symptoms, which can become even more complex when symptoms of two or more conditions overlap.

According to WomenHeart: The National Coalition of Women With Heart Disease, if you are a woman who is already diagnosed with heart disease, you are likely to be taking several cardiac medications.  Some of these can produce allergic reactions with distressing symptoms. Or you may be coping with seasonal or food allergies along with your heart condition.    Continue reading “Allergic reaction or heart attack: can you tell the difference?” →

Heart screening scans – or scams?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 10 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥ @HeartSisters

In the words of the cantankerous Dr. Gregory House of TV fame, CT calcium scan screening tests are

“…useless because you could probably scan every one of us and find 50 doo-dads that look like tumours”.

That’s not quite what those who are promoting these screening scans tell us. They tell us that we really should be forking over $600-$3,000 to them in order to get a CT (computed tomography) calcium scan to screen for possible disease.

I’ve been seeing more and more ads marketing full-body or heart screening scan services at for-profit clinics, shopping malls, church basements, and even in tractor trailers hauling imaging machines. One ad for a CT heart screening scan promised that it can:

“…detect calcium deposits (or the hardening of plaque) in the arteries of the heart. This is useful information if determined early, prior to a heart attack. With this knowledge, a person may be empowered to change his or her lifestyle and slow the progression of heart disease or even prevent a heart attack.”

“May be empowered to change”?  Why would you have to spend $600 – $3,000 to “empower” yourself to start improving your lifestyle? Here’s a cheaper alternative: send me 50 bucks now and I’ll empower you right upside the head to quit smoking, eat more veggies, and do more exercise from this day forward.

Continue reading “Heart screening scans – or scams?” →