the Heart Attack Thread

[Diesel4me]

Anybody here ever have a heart attack? Post here if you have, or want to talk about it. I had one that started at 4am on New Year's Eve, and lasted 3 1/2 hours. Just got out of the hospital. My heart attack was ended by an emergency angioplasty, and I have a card to carry in my wallet that tells people the brand name and size of my stent.

There's more to it than that of course, I just wanted to see if I could get a ball rolling here.

[TN-W124 Diesel]

yes I had one 3 years ago, I had the angioplasty with no stent. I have to take the blood thinners too (I hate it)

[Diesel4me]

I'm wearing a sweatshirt so I don't have to look at my black blue and purple arms where the EMT's were litterally stabbing in the dark for a vein in the ambulance. My grandfather had his first one at 38, and I just turned 39. I'm looking forward to either two more angioplastys OR a double bypass. Not sure which yet, I really don't want surgery.

I'm thankful I lived through it (that was a painful 3.5 hours though) and it was certainly a wake-up call for me. I have not had a smoke since before the pain started. BUT I don't understand how I managed to GAIN weight in the hospital.

Eric, you should make sure you don't do anything to contribute to your chances of having a heart attack or stroke. Some people live a healthy life and still are stricken. Of course that was not me.

[koop]

Waiting on my first one. Overweight, smoke, drink, eat red meat. Dad had 8 of them. It's coming.

[Diesel4me]

Originally Posted by koop

Waiting on my first one. Overweight, smoke, drink, eat red meat. Dad had 8 of them. It's coming.

You should get looked at and get taken care of, this is preventable.


Be careful. I'm telling you, it hurts.

[kerry]

I'm glad you made it thru alive. I hope Amanda Love did not suffer too much seeing you in pain.
I good friend of mine's father died of a heart attack at a very young age. He was a heavy smoker, drinker and eater. My friend vowed to live a healthy lifestyle to avoid the same fate. It made very little difference. He had the same condition at roughly the same age and has had a number of operations to have stents installed.
What were your symptoms? Did you know it was a heart attack? What did you do?

[Diesel4me]

Kerry it was really freaky. I was stressed that a driver of mine was supposed to be in New Orleans to drop at 7am, called me at 3am to tell me he was just then leaving Houston. He was going to be at least two hours late, and I was freaking out thinking I would get called onto the carpet about it.

So I tried to put it out of my mind and lay down to sleep. As soon as my head hit the pillow the chest pain started. I layed there for about 15 minutes or so, knowing that this wasn't my first chest pain, and thinking it would go away. It got worse, I managed to get to my feet and walked into the living room and sat in my recliner, and waited another ten minutes or so, and I tried to put my clothes on. I couldn't catch my breath and I started sweating. My left arm was hurting and the fingers were tingling. I called 911, and waited for the ambulance. They came, hooked me up to their little portable deal, and said that my heart looked pretty good. I got more upset and asked well hell am I having a heart attack or not, what's the deal? They got me into the ambulance, started trying to do an IV, gave me Aspirin (I had already done that, forgot to tell you) and started spraying nitroglycerin spray under my tongue (was like Binaca) after every spray she kept asking "Does it feel any better?" NO!

I didn't know I was really having a heart attack (for sure, no doubt about it) till I got to the first hospital and they drew blood and hooked to their machines. The cardiologist that worked on me at the second hospital just happened to be at the first hospital when I came in, and when the clot buster didn't work, we were off like a flash to the second hospital.


I was awake of course during the procedure and as soon as blood started flowing around my heart again, I had instant relief. I am very thankful.

PS I really have no idea what Amanda thought of the whole thing, the pain was just unbearable and that was pretty much the only thing that was on my mind the entire time. I am a wuss about pain.

What REALLY pissed me off was that the first ambulance never turned on it's lights or siren and was stopping at stoplights and stuff, this at 5am on Friday morning. The second ambulance haulled ass.

I don't want this whole thread to be about me, I want to hear some other stories, and for those that know they have problems and are getting fixxed, how they chose between having multiple angioplasty procedures vs. having double, triple, or quad bypass.

[kerry]

That sounds really scary. How were they able to tell you were having the attack? The blood flow around the heart? Are you scheduled for surgery in the near future or are they monitoring your condition to see if it gets worse? Have they given you advice on how to avoid future episodes?
I had a neighbor in his 80's who would have frequent heart attacks. I'd find him laying on the lawn or collapsed on my steps. This went on for about a year before I finally talked him into seeing a doctor. (He was poor and stubborn in accepting public assistance). They gave him nitroglycerin tablets and then I'd find him sitting on my steps putting a pill under his tongue. The finally said he needed bypass surgery after about a year and half. He refused and decided to just carry on with his pills. He lasted about another year. He must have had dozens and dozens of heart attacks in about 3 years. I was astonished by his stamina and courage.

When Bill Clinton had his operation, I thought they should have grafted in some arteries from his penis since they seemed to be functioning really well.

[elau]

Diesel4Me,
Glad to hear you are OK. Your story is really scary.

I don't have a heart attack but I do watch my life style as high chorestoral runs in my family. I have my blood work every 6 months as I do not want to be on medication. I exercise 6 days a week and have red meat once every other week. As bad as it sounds, my chorestoral is actually dropping. It was 289 two years ago and my doctor was alarmed and wanted me to go on medication at once. I told her I would bring it down to an acceptable level within 90 days. She did not believe me, and I brought it down to 198. But I slacked off and it went back to 240 in '03. I started back to my exercise regiment in Jan of '04 and it dropped to 220 last check in Dec. My doctor told me she will not force the issue of medication as long as I will have my blood work every 6 months.

My grandfather died of a massive heart attack when he was 92. He smoked, drank and type-A all his life. He was having a heated argument over some stupid TV shows one weekend morning with my father and uncles, he stood up suddenly and said Argh holding his chest, turned purple and dropped to the floor. They said he was dead before he hit the floor.

[Diesel4me]

Originally Posted by kerry edwards

That sounds really scary. How were they able to tell you were having the attack? The blood flow around the heart? Are you scheduled for surgery in the near future or are they monitoring your condition to see if it gets worse? Have they given you advice on how to avoid future episodes?

Apparently they can tell whether you're having a heart attack or not by doing the blood test. I think that's how they finally realized what was going on with me, plus a chest xray. Then when they got me to the second hospital to have the angioplasty, the exact location of the problem was apparent because of the dye they put in the blood. I have some neat xrays, before and after, but I don't know how to post them.

I have to go back Thursday to talk about whether I'm going to get scheduled for the bypass surgery, or more angioplasty. The Dr. says that if he does the bypass, that would last me for at least another decade before other work might have to happen. He did say that I was born with really big arteries.

I just have to change my whole diet and quit smoking and learn to relax, those are the ways to prevent another heart attack, besides staying on my meds and stuff. Walked out of that hospital with 10 scripts.

About your neighbor, I can't imagine someone having multiple heart attacks and not going to the hospital or anything. I guess some people can stand more pain than others, plus if it happened that often with him, he probably had a lot of heart damage after all that.

Originally Posted by kerry edwards

That sounds really scary. How were they able to tell you were having the attack? The blood flow around the heart?

When you have a heart attack the arteries and muscle spew troponin.