Tag: heart attack symptoms in women

What I wish I knew back then: “Am I having a heart attack?” Part 1 in a new summer series

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 11 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas    ♥    @HeartSisters

Part of what made my “widowmaker” heart attack so frightening at the time was simply how much I did not know about what was happening to me. Like many women, if I ever thought about heart disease – which was approximately NEVER! – I considered it to be a man’s problem. And as a healthy woman in my 50s (and a distance runner for 19 years), becoming a heart patient one day was never on my radar.

“What I Wish I Knew Back Then”  is a new back-to-basics summer series of posts here on Heart Sisters that will revisit some of the most frequently asked questions from brand new heart patients. Today, we kick off the series with the very basic question that accompanies almost all frightening cardiac symptoms: “Am I having a heart attack?”         . Continue reading “What I wish I knew back then: “Am I having a heart attack?” Part 1 in a new summer series” →

“Dear Carolyn: I was never one to complain”

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 8 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters 

Sometimes, the story of how another woman first discovered she had heart disease can seem eerily familiar to our own. It’s that familiarity that first attracted me to this Dear Carolyn episode (our fourth in the occasional series that features my Heart Sisters readers sharing the unique experience of what it can feel like to become a heart patient).

This particular reader, who prefers to remain anonymous, explains her reluctance to seek medical help while repeatedly blaming her distressing symptoms on non-cardiac causes. I completely identified with that reluctance because I went through that same surreal refusal to seek help for my own worsening cardiac symptoms after being misdiagnosed in the E.R. with acid reflux. If you, too, have ever engaged in what researchers call “treatment-seeking delay behaviour“ during a heart attack, her story might feel familiar to you, too. Continue reading ““Dear Carolyn: I was never one to complain”” →

Do NOT drive yourself to the E.R. in mid-heart attack!

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 19 Comments

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by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters

I don’t know why this even needs saying, but apparently it does. People talking about heart patients with severe chest pain (or offering advice to heart patients with severe chest pain, or speaking onstage at Stanford University’s Medicine X conference showing this dreadful slide about heart patients with severe chest pain) must never – and I do mean NEVER – even hint that patients should drive themselves to hospital while experiencing “severe chest pain” unless you are “too dizzy to drive yourself”. 

REALITY UPDATE: I am posting this slide as a warning to others about giving bad advice, not to offer an opinion on hospitals that invest in patient communication tools, unless you are the hospital responsible for sending out that boneheaded text on the above slide.

Continue reading “Do NOT drive yourself to the E.R. in mid-heart attack!” →

Words matter when we describe our heart attack symptoms

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 29 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas   ♥  @HeartSisters

When I interviewed Dr. Catherine Kreatsoulas* about the research paper she presented last month in Vancouver at the Canadian Cardiovascular Congress(1), her previous heart studies caught my attention, too.

I was surprised by her explanation from earlier research on how some women describe their chest pain during a heart attack (2), as she told me:  .   .
Continue reading “Words matter when we describe our heart attack symptoms” →