Category: Women and heart attacks

– posts here focus on warning signs and symptoms women experience during a cardiac event

The 5 stages of “What the hell just happened to me?”

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 23 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas   ♥  @HeartSisters

Kathy Kastan’s book “From the Heart” was hot off the press when I survived a misdiagnosed heart attack in 2008. Hers was the first book I found that focused specifically on women and heart disease. Here’s how her own story was described on the book’s cover:

“After undergoing emergency coronary bypass surgery at age 42, Kathy Kastan found her world shifting in unexpected ways. Everything – her sense of well-being, relationships, daily routine, even her body image – seemed to change. Doctors helped her recover physically, but she had to find new methods to recover emotionally and create a happy, healthy life.”  

While I read this back then, my own world was crazily shifting, too. Continue reading “The 5 stages of “What the hell just happened to me?”” →

Too fit and healthy to worry about heart disease?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 10 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters

Anne at the 2017 Monterey Bay Half Marathon, Thomas Blog photo*

 A number of my readers contacted me recently to make sure I’d seen Gretchen Reynolds’ new Washington Post article  (THANK YOU, dear heart sisters, for thinking of me!)  For those who missed it, I want to revisit some key messages from a tragic story about Gretchen’s friend, Anne – her hiking/mountain biking/distance running (also non-drinking and non-smoking) buddy.  Gretchen described 61-year old Anne as “kind and capable, modest and fit”.  She died suddenly last month.  Anne’s  cause of death, as Gretchen wrote in her regular column in the Post, was “a bolt-of-lightning heart attack” :         . 
Continue reading “Too fit and healthy to worry about heart disease?” →

When male and female heart patients play the same game, but with different rules

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ Leave a comment
                                   .        Notice anything unusual about this group of doctors?

by Carolyn Thomas    ♥   @HeartSisters

She introduced herself to me as she took her seat – although she, of course, needed NO introduction. I was utterly star-struck to realize that THE Nanette Wenger had just sat down beside me in the Mayo Clinic auditorium hosting our conference on women and heart disease. Between the onstage presentations, she chatted amiably, graciously curious about me, a heart patient/panelist on that day’s conference schedule.  I asked about her early days as a female cardiologist in such a steeply male-dominated field. My take-away from that memorable autumn afternoon:  when a noted medical pioneer who has been a practicing cardiologist for 70 years speaks, you listen!

Here’s what Dr. Wenger recently had to say about a Yale University study – in her no-nonsense editorial published in the cardiac journal Circulation – “Sauce for the Goose vs. Sauce for the Gander:  Should Men and Women Play the Same Game But With Different Rules?”          .      Continue reading “When male and female heart patients play the same game, but with different rules” →

Must women bring an advocate along so doctors will believe us?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 16 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas    ♥   @HeartSisters

This week, three books and three bold messages about the problem with male-centric medicine:  In her book Sex Matters: How Male-Centric Medicine Endangers Women’s Health, Dr. Alyson McGregor defines male-centric medicine like this: medical research and medical practice based on models historically designed to work in men, while ignoring the unique biological/emotional differences between men and women. In fact, she writes that the male-centric model of medicine is now so pervasive in health care that many of us don’t even realize it exists:

“Women who experience severe pain often have trouble convincing the doctor treating them of how serious that pain is. The more women protest and try to convince the physician, the more their behaviour is perceived as hysterical. This perception can work against them in the Emergency Department.”

If that’s where you are, Dr. McGregor warns: “the best thing you can do as a woman is to bring an advocate with you to explain your symptoms.”         .   Continue reading “Must women bring an advocate along so doctors will believe us?” →