Heart Attack in Women
Is Heart Attack No. 1 Killer of Women in USA?
Heart disease has in the last years become an equal opportunity killer. It is our nation’s number one killer with one quarter million deaths occurring each year. Years ago it was classically observed that heart disease was a man’s disease just as breast cancer was a women disease. But times and events are shifting. Heart disease kills more women than men. Five hundred thousand people have a heart attack each year. At the moment, heart attack is the leading killer of women. It kills more women than all the cancers combined. In middle aged women, heart attack kills more women than breast cancer. Women who have an acute myocardial infarction (heart attack) are more likely to die from it, less likely to get out of the hospital following a heart attack and more likely to succumb and die within a year than men are.
The symptoms of a heart attack differ between men and women. In men, the classic signs of mid-sternal chest pain after exertion that may radiate to the jaw or left arm or neck are seen. Pain is described as crushing, stabbing in nature. Women sometimes have similar symptoms, but more often they have more subtle and different ones. Many times, no pain occurs at all (in four of ten women). Angina occurs in women following mental stress and not physical exertion. More GI symptoms may be seen with nausea, vomiting, simple GI upset or indigestion as a presenting clue. Fatigue, dizziness or weakness may occur. A cold sweaty or clammy wet feeling is more common in women. A feeling of impending doom or anxious feeling is observed in women. Pain between the shoulders blades, along the bra line is felt, or in the jaw. A fast heart rate or swelling in the ankles can happen.
Women may not recognize their symptoms. Indeed, they suffer sleep disorders, shortness of breath and ankle swelling as heart disease symptoms that may occur a month before the heart attack. In addition, the disease is different. Men have larger artery disease that is amenable to surgery and can be seen by radiographic studies. Women have micro-vascular disease. This is not seen on invasive studies and is not surgically correctable. This may account for the poorer outcome. Many are quick to blame physicians for not diagnosing coronary disease in women, but even in men diagnosing a heart attack is sometimes very difficult and requires a high degree of suspicion and experience. Sometimes it is just an educated hunch that something is wrong.
So what should a woman do? Eat a healthy diet, exercise regularly and DO NOT SMOKE, or quit immediately. See your doctor for an exam and blood tests like cholesterol, glucose and thyroid. Check your blood pressure routinely and have it treated it if it is abnormally high. Are you overweight? Should I be on a baby aspirin a day? Do you have a family history of heart disease? Talk to your doctor now about all of the above. Prevention is better than the cure.
June 2nd, 2009 at 5:03 am
I am one of those women who suffered MANY “misdiagnosed” heart attacks at a young age. Finally, a massive heart attack at 42 brought awareness to ALL of the other emergency room visits where I was treated for indigestion, stress, gall bladder removal, and gall stones removal only to name a few of the surgeries trying to find out why I was having that intense pain (the most severe of anything I have ever felt) in the “center” to the “right” side of my chest, and severe pain in the middle of my stomach, vomiting, migraines, passing out, cold sweats, shaking of hands and weakness in the legs and racing of the heart. (Heart palpatations.) Grant it, I was always stressing about one thing or the other and nine chances out of ten, that’s what it was diagnosed as.
Yes, I do blame my doctors (not just one, many of them), because this began around the age of 25 or so and continued throughout until the age of 42. Although I had “abnormal EKG”s, they were echnored (because of my age.) One doctor suggested it was because of the pain that the EKG was spiking, which I know now can not happen!
While on vacation, I had one of the “attacks” and the only hospital we could find was the Heart, Chest and Trauma Center in Joplin, Mi. (and we were not aware that this is what it was.)
After arguing with doctors that there was nothing wrong with my heart I agreed to have a stent placed (after some shouting, from fear, I might add). I awoke in the Intensive Care Unit with my doctor asking me if I was aware that I had had several heart attacks? There was too much damage and old damage to be caused by the one I was admitted for.
I was not overweight, I was healthy, I was young, I exercised and was very active. I did, however, smoke and have a history of heart disease in my family (which I was not aware of.) The heart specialist told me that ALL of the symptons I described were classic symptons of heart attacks and he could NOT figure out how my other doctors did not catch it?
So…if you have any of those symptons, DO NOT ACCEPT one opinion and sometimes it may take more, but get diagnosed or be able to absolutely rule out a heart attack. To date I have had two stent placements, a valve repaired and three ballooned artieries! And we are not done yet. Because the damage was not treated right away there is a lot of it.
I must tell you that I take Plavix and aspirin on a daily basis now with other medications and have gone almost three years without a heart attack and only a few angina attacks. I had another massive heart attack, but I do believe the medications have helped with controlling them and that simply took time to figure out. I am one of the lucky ones and/or blessed ones because I’ve had family members (younger) than me pass away with heart attacks, even after my diagnosis!
I’m still wandering about the medical profession myself because I was also admitted since then, KNOWING what a heart attack feels like, and a “new” doctor came in and said I could go home because it WAS NOT heart attack. Within 30 minutes I was being flown to another hospital for another stent placement that was a 90% blockage. Had the other doctor had his way, I probably would have went home and died!
My husband was told had this happened to anyone else, they would have hit the floor and never got up. I don’t know why or how I have survived the other heart attacks, but I have, and I Thank God for that.
I did a lot of crying before I got help and had even comtemplated suicide because the pain is so severe you wish you were dead! Not to mention the vomiting and not having the strength to reach the phone to call 911! Being told (by one doctor) that this was in my head nearly destroyed me and my marriage because I knew it was real! I now tell all my friends and warn people every chance I get. This is serious, no matter your age, take it seriously! Find out your family history if at all possible. It helps. Argue with your doctor if you have to and don’t just settle for what he says. I no longer do. Glenda