Tag: Helen A.

Pre-hospital care: can paramedics influence your cardiac future?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 9 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas    ♥   @HeartSisters

Helen A. (pictured here) is a longtime Heart Sisters reader from North Carolina. (My other regular readers may remember Helen’s heart patient story a few years ago in The Handlebar-Gripping Cardiac Symptom). Helen asked me recently if I’d ever written about the influence of paramedics on subsequent medical care. Here’s how she started her message:

“We called 911 because I was having heart attack symptoms, but by the time we arrived at the hospital, the paramedic had decided nothing really serious was going on, and he made me get out of the ambulance and walk into the Emergency Department.” 

Unfortunately for Helen, however, something “really serious” was in fact going on. Continue reading “Pre-hospital care: can paramedics influence your cardiac future?” →

The “handlebar gripping” cardiac symptom

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 20 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas    ♥    @HeartSisters

When the Emergency Department physician misdiagnosed my “widow maker” heart attack as acid reflux, I actually felt relieved at first.  I’d much rather have indigestion than heart disease, thank you very much. His confident misdiagnosis meant I was temporarily willing to ignore the obvious cardiac symptoms that had propelled me to Emergency that morning: central chest pain, nausea, sweating and pain down my left arm.

Even I knew that arm pain is NOT a symptom of acid reflux, yet somehow that first plausible answer seemed preferable to the far more serious real answer I would receive much later.      .      . Continue reading “The “handlebar gripping” cardiac symptom” →