Tag: coronary artery plaque

What I wish I knew back then: “What happens to heart muscle during a heart attack?”

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 7 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas    ♥   @HeartSisters

Researchers tell us that women wait significantly longer than our male counterparts to seek medical help – yes, even in mid-heart attack!  In fact, trying to figure out WHY women wait dangerously longer than we should has become a unique field of cardiac study on what’s known as “treatment-seeking delay behaviour“.

“What I Wish I Knew Back Then”  is a back-to-basics summer series of posts here on Heart Sisters that will revisit some of the most frequently asked questions from new heart patients. Today, Part 2 continues with another basic that often accompanies a heart attack: “What happens to heart muscle if I wait too long to get urgent help?”  Continue reading “What I wish I knew back then: “What happens to heart muscle during a heart attack?”” →

Heart disease: decades in the making

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 17 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas    ♥   @HeartSisters  

I was surprised to learn after surviving my own heart attack that cardiac events like mine may take 20-30 years to actually show up. In other words, I didn’t have a heart attack because I ate a piece of bacon or had a stressful day at work. I had a heart attack because something – likely decades earlier – had damaged the delicate endothelial cells lining my coronary arteries.          .      .  .    .   Continue reading “Heart disease: decades in the making” →

Heart attacks: “Men explode, but women erode”

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 8 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥ @HeartSisters

heart-460546_1280Los Angeles cardiologist Dr. Noel Bairey Merz believes that the biggest issue facing women heart patients is that as a society we have been programmed to think of heart disease as a man’s problem. During a presentation in Australia last year, she told her audience:

“The fatty build-up of plaque in a coronary artery causing a heart attack will usually rupture or ‘explode’ in men.

“But in women, it will often be a much smaller, more subtle event, caused by ‘erosion’, not explosion. 

“Often their symptoms may throw doctors off track to the wrong diagnosis, and in many cases, women won’t even know they have had a heart attack until it’s too late.”   .

Continue reading “Heart attacks: “Men explode, but women erode”” →