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Just had a heart attack

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Re: Just had a heart attack

#61

Post by 300bps »

dontdownplease wrote: post #9
atko wrote: post #5

Glad you're okay and thank you for the warning. Could you provide any information as to what could be the possible cause of your heart attack? Your age, habits etc?

Looking at the picture on his LinkedIn profile https://www.linkedin.com/in/philliprhodes it does look like he may have been overweight. I suspect that is a huge contributing factor in this. I'm sorry if anyone get offended by this, but it does look like mindcrime could have been more proactive in looking after his weight. Now it's completely possible that mindcrime has some other condition which limits, or at least r…

When I was 18 years old and worked at a computer consulting company, my 41 year old boss had a heart attack. He was less overweight than the OP, smoked and got no physical exercise.

After his heart attack he went in for an angioplasty with one of those nicotine patches on his arm. Since having a heart attack, he was trying to stop smoking. His doctor looked him in the eye and said, "Well here we are. Do you want to live or do you want to die?" My boss said he wanted to live. So the doctor ripped the patch off his arm and said, "Just stop with the nicotine then."

OP you have a similar choice before you. I'm now 42 and I see your LinkedIn picture and "a touch overweight" is not what comes to mind. If your BMI is not into the obese category, I'd wager you're close to it.

Re: Just had a heart attack

#62

Post by thearn4 »

StefanPopp wrote: post #55

Last year when i was 27 i had a strange feeling in my chest after smoking a cigarette, i didn't smoke for 4 years in row. After 2 minutes i got very nervous and i felt overall very strange. Two days later i smoked another cigarette and the same feeling started again, but this time it felt like ants are running up my neck. After 5 minutes and calming down me teeth started to itch. From day to day i got more and more w…

Thank you so sharing, it's a good reminder that careful focus on health can't take a backseat forever. It's great to hear how much better you're doing now.

Re: Just had a heart attack

#63

Post by JshWright »

hoggle wrote: post #42
robbiep wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doctor here. The 'typical' signs of a heart attack are chest pain usually described as dull, heavy or tight, with radiation to the arm(s) and neck. The patient often also complains of diaphoresis (sweating) , shortness of breath and perhaps weakness. 'Typical' signs do not present in everyone: in particular diabetics are at increased risk of having 'silent' heart attacks, And chest pain that is not typical may also b…

"... almost all from a coronary artery called the left main blocking...These patients unfortunately almost all dead on arrival." How can we monitor this effectively? There must be a solution that does something after something has registered a problem.

This isn't as straightforward as you might think... Checking for occlusion of coronary arteries is a reasonably involved process.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronary_catheterization

Re: Just had a heart attack

#64

Post by scrozier »

MrJagil wrote: post #45
robbiep wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doctor here. The 'typical' signs of a heart attack are chest pain usually described as dull, heavy or tight, with radiation to the arm(s) and neck. The patient often also complains of diaphoresis (sweating) , shortness of breath and perhaps weakness. 'Typical' signs do not present in everyone: in particular diabetics are at increased risk of having 'silent' heart attacks, And chest pain that is not typical may also b…

One problem with this is that, I, as an individual suffering from anxiety, "regularly" suffer form chest pains. This often spirals into the terrible cycle of anxiety -> chest pains -> anxiety about the chest pains being a heart attack. I can only assume that the chest pains will be different and more severe if I should ever have a heart attack. http://www.calmclinic.com/anxiety/symptoms/chest-pain

I suffered serious anxiety and panic for a couple of years. Called 911 several times, thinking it was a heart attack. My wife, who is a doctor, humored me through these episodes, though she knew what was going on. One day, as I came to her again and proclaimed I was having a heart attack, she said, "You know, if you're standing up, you're pink, and you're telling me you're having a heart attack, you're probably not (having one)." That calmed me down. Over the next year, I learned to "fix" my anxiety, and now only rarely feel a wave of panic coming on, and even then, can get it under control.

Re: Just had a heart attack

#65

Post by srcmap »

robbiep wrote: post #50
MrJagil wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One problem with this is that, I, as an individual suffering from anxiety, "regularly" suffer form chest pains. This often spirals into the terrible cycle of anxiety -> chest pains -> anxiety about the chest pains being a heart attack. I can only assume that the chest pains will be different and more severe if I should ever have a heart attack. http://www.calmclinic.com/anxiety/symptoms/chest-pain

Literally yesterday I treated a patient who has had 4 presentations this year to emergency with chest pain that sounds cardiac enough, except it lasts for several hours sometimes and sometimes she can 'feel it coming on' and heD it off by relaxing. Still, it could always be a heart attack and until a through work up is done to exclude it (acutely, ECG and troponins, as outpatient, stress test), it is worth investigat…

Amazon has some home ECG monitor device. Do you recommend their use?

I execise regularly. If those device are effective, I would love to use them weekly or monthly on myself and collect the data long term for me and possibly my doctor.

Re: Just had a heart attack

#66

Post by escapologybb »

Just thought I'd chime in with the fact that I have had quite a few heart attacks and nobody's mentioned one of the overriding sensations I repeatedly had, and that was one of having a belt tightened around my chest. Like there was literally somebody stood behind me tightening the thing, and the longer it went on the more it felt like an iron band was clamping tighter and tighter. Not fun.

That's also one of the terrible things about anxiety bringing on these types of symptoms, if you've already had a heart attack and subsequently you have an anxiety attack which brings on similar symptoms there is just no way to discount anything (for me). Also not fun.

Luckily the heart attacks I had weren't the result of an underlying problem with my heart, it was because I was going in to urine retention which caused either sodium or potassium to build up in my system causing all the problems. I can never remember which one it was!

But seriously, if you feel the symptoms get help.

Re: Just had a heart attack

#67

Post by JshWright »

melling wrote: post #52
robbiep wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To take an ECG tracing you need at least 3 points of contact with skin around the body (a hospital ECG has 9 leads attached to the body from which the machine calculates 12 waveforms of electrical activity). A watch based mechanism would not have the capacity to do this and even a 3 lead ECG would not be considered sufficient as it would miss too many changes. I therefore believe that a smart watch would not with any…

How, about detecting one of the side effects of a heart attack? You can then evaluate if you have a problem by any of the other symptoms. If I'm experiencing chest pain and my smart watches is indicating that my heart rate is irregular, for example, maybe I shouldn't be ignoring this.

A heart attack isn't likely to cause an irregular heartbeat (at least not until well after the damage has been done). It's common for heart attacks to cause cardiac conduction anomalies called 'blocks', but these generally don't result in any irregularity of the pulse.

Re: Just had a heart attack

#68

Post by ludicast »

Good luck, and congrats on making it through the woods. Sounds like you are in good hands which makes all the difference.

You are right on the money about calling 911. As men we tend to be slow making the call, and don't want to seem like whiners. I always think of the line from The Edge - "Most people in the wilderness, they die of shame".

Had emergency surgery for aortic dissection myself in february (mentioned it on caffeine thread here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8520241). I felt for a moment like someone grabbed my heart, then agonizing back pain took over, and some nausea. But no more chest pain. I really just assumed I hurt my back working out, because I do easily it once a season (though I'm getting older, but am acting younger)

I sort of ruled out heart issues because I did cpr in real life a few days earlier (I'm a fireman with FDNY (though now probably looking at forced retirement)). And took my CFR (EMS-lite) refresher a week before that. Thought it would be a total coincidence it's my heart.

Even though it takes time to heal, 8 months later I have mostly "healed from the healing process", and you will get there in time. In some weird way it is one of the best things to have happened to me too, kind of plants your feet on the ground in the way few things can.

The major post surgery things I had were:

- Chills waking me up at night

- Nerve damage from my shoulder being mis-positioned at some point

- The pericardium being partially removed during surgery lets me hear my heart much more intimately than I'd like to

But all these are way better now. Still have a lot of insomnia still.

Re: Just had a heart attack

#70

Post by chmike »

RafiqM wrote: post #18
M4v3R wrote: post #4

Can someone with some medical experience write about what are exactly the warning signs for a heart attack? While it's definitely wise to call 911 when in doubt, it's good to have own understanding first so we don't ignore the symptoms AND don't flood 911 with false problems.

Here's the thing - people experiencing a heart attack can have any combination, or none of the symptoms. So here's some of the symptoms, bearing in mind that they may or may not apply to any given situation. Chest Pain The first and most obvious sign is chest pain. It may be radiating down your left side (jaw/arm). It is generally described as a crushing pain. This symptom is less likely to occur for women or people…

My case is a bit different. First I had tooth pain. I went to the dentist pointing him the tooth. He made a radio and said that I could not have pain because this tooth was abnormal and had no nerve. I didn't investigate further. Later I learned that hart pain can be linked to tooth pain.

I later had a huge pain in my elbow. It was as if a big nail was hammered through it. I then went to my cardiologist and he noticed a change in my ECG. I did a ECG under effort and he stopped it after a minute. My ECG became completely crazy under effort. I saw it later. From this point things went as routine work. Got a stent and everything is now ok.

So symptoms my differ. I never had chest pain. Only elbow pain. The tooth pain was also a hint I now monitor. When it hurts I know I have to be careful with what I eat. It then calms down.

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