Tag: Dr. Sharon O’Donnell

When heart attack symptoms disappear – and then return

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 16 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters  

One of the most surprising things about having a heart attack was experiencing cardiac symptoms that appeared, and then went away, and then returned, over and over again for two weeks until I was finally appropriately diagnosed. What was happening to me? In my (mistaken) stereotype of what a heart attack looks like, I had pictured sudden chest-clutching agony that became swiftly worse until you keeled over, unconscious and/or dead.

Every time those come-and-go symptoms eased up, it helped me to believe the Emergency physician who had misdiagnosed my symptoms as acid reflux before sending me home.  Continue reading “When heart attack symptoms disappear – and then return” →

Slow-onset heart attack: the trickster that fools us

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 109 Comments

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by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters

As I’ve noted here previously, there were a number of very good reasons that I believed that Emergency Department physician who sent me home with an acid reflux misdiagnosis. Despite my textbook heart attack symptoms of central chest pain, nausea, sweating and pain down my left arm, these reasons included:

1.  He had the letters M.D. after his name;

2.  He misdiagnosed me in a decisively authoritative manner;

3.  I wanted to believe him because I’d much rather have indigestion than heart disease, thank you very much;

4.  The Emergency nurse scolded me privately about my questions to this doctor, warning me: “He is a very good doctor, and he does not like to be questioned!”  (The questions I’d been asking included, not surprisingly: “But Doctor, what about this pain down my left arm?”);

5.  Most of all, what I had always imagined a heart attack looking like (clutching one’s chest in agony, falling down unconscious, 911, ambulance, sirens, CPR) was not at all what I was experiencing. Instead, despite my alarming symptoms, I was still able to walk, talk, think and generally behave like a normally functioning person, i.e. one who is definitely NOT having a heart attack!*

So it all made sense to me as I was being sent home from Emergency that day, feeling very embarrassed because I had clearly been making a big fuss over nothing.

My experience, however, might have been what researchers in Ireland refer to as “slow-onset myocardial infarction”.   Continue reading “Slow-onset heart attack: the trickster that fools us” →