Category: Signs of a heart attack

Let’s pretend that atypical heart attack symptoms don’t exist

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 33 Comments
by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters  

Two cardiology reports landed in my inbox on the same day this past week, in the  same issue of the same cardiology journal. The first was a Yale University study on how women, particularly women younger than age 55, fare worse after surviving a heart attack compared to male counterparts, partly because of a tendency to present with vague or atypical symptoms that can delay accurate diagnoses.(1) The second was about the future of the American Heart Association’s Go Red For Women® campaign.(2)*   Both papers were published in the journal, Circulation.

The trouble was this: each report seemed to contradict the other. Continue reading “Let’s pretend that atypical heart attack symptoms don’t exist” →

Women’s early warning signs of a heart attack

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 21 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters

When Dr. Jean McSweeney from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences interviewed hundreds of heart attack survivors, she discovered something surprising: 95 percent of the women she interviewed actually suspected something was very wrong in the months leading up to their attack.

But even these early warning prodromal symptoms didn’t necessarily send women rushing to the doctor, as reported in Dr. McSweeney’s study published in the cardiology journal, Circulation.(1)  And for those women who did seek help early, doctors often failed to identify their problems as being heart-related.  Continue reading “Women’s early warning signs of a heart attack” →

How does it really feel to have a heart attack? Female survivors answer that question

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 20 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters

Having a heart attack felt nothing like how I thought it would feel.   For one thing, unlike sudden cardiac arrest, in which the heart stops beating and you stop breathing, during my heart attack (myocardial infarction), my heart continued beating, and I was walking, talking and conscious throughout despite horrific symptoms – so how could I possibly be having a heart attack?

Like most women, I’d never really thought about my heart – except maybe years ago when running up that killer Quadra Street hill with my running group. Yet we know that heart disease kills six times more women than breast cancer does each year (in fact, it kills more women than all forms of cancer combined).

Women need to know all the potential symptoms of a heart attack – and seek immediate medical help if these symptoms do hit.  So I asked some survivors to share their very first symptoms. Their heart attack stories may surprise you:
 Continue reading “How does it really feel to have a heart attack? Female survivors answer that question” →

When the woman who won’t call 911 is your mother

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 28 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas    ♥   @HeartSisters

Cardiologists know that, when it comes to seeking emergency medical help while experiencing alarming cardiac symptoms, women can be surprisingly reluctant to call 911. As I’ve written about here, here and here, this is a puzzling phenomenon we call treatment-seeking delay behaviour. It turns out that some cardiologists have to worry not only about patients like this, but about their own mothers. Continue reading “When the woman who won’t call 911 is your mother” →