Listen up, women.

[xoxoxoBruce]

A dear friend was buried today. She was in her mid-50s, had diabetes, and had been recently hospitalized for an infected cut.
But what killed her was a massive heart attack. No, I take that back, what killed her was ignorance.

Sure, she had a massive heart attack, but she didn't know it, because women's symptoms are not the same as men's, which have been drilled into everyone's heads with public service announcements, and pamphlets/literature.

The next day she complained to a friend, in passing, she felt really crappy, and said friend forced her to go to the ER, worrying it was a reaction to the infection drugs. You see, she didn't know the symptoms either.

At the ER, they asked her if she had chest pains. She said no. Then they did blood tests and confirmed the heart attack. Finally 30-odd hours after the attack, surgery and a pacemaker. She died the next day.

This has been mentioned here before, but there's a lot of work to be done educating women about heart attacks. Educate yourself, your life depends on it.

[Cloud]

I'm so sorry about your friend, Bruce. I'll go look up the symptoms now.

[SamIam]

Hmmm. Never knew that.

From the NIH:

Research by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) indicates that women often experience new or different physical symptoms as long as a month or more before experiencing heart attacks.
Among the 515 women studied, 95-percent said they knew their symptoms were new or different a month or more before experiencing their heart attack, or Acute Myocardial Infarction (AMI). The symptoms most commonly reported were unusual fatigue (70.6-percent), sleep disturbance (47.8-percent), and shortness of breath (42.1-percent).

Surprisingly, fewer than 30% reported having chest pain or discomfort prior to their heart attacks, and 43% reported have no chest pain during any phase of the attack. Most doctors, however, continue to consider chest pain as the most important heart attack symptom in both women and men.

http://usgovinfo.about.com/cs/health.../womensami.htm

[Pie]

unusual fatigue? sleep disturbance?
I've been having a heart attack for the past 15 years, then.


Sorry to hear about your friend, Bruce. But the utter lack of specificity when it comes to women's symptoms makes it very hard to be as proactive as men. Why the hell don't we come with better error codes?

[xoxoxoBruce]

Because women are better at detecting nuance and subtly, they don't need better codes?

[Cloud]

or because the manual would be the size of the Gutenberg Bible.

[Trilby]

I'm so sorry , bruce.

Thanks for the reminder.

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by Pie

unusual fatigue? sleep disturbance?
I've been having a heart attack for the past 15 years, then.


Sorry to hear about your friend, Bruce. But the utter lack of specificity when it comes to women's symptoms makes it very hard to be as proactive as men. Why the hell don't we come with better error codes?

This.

I also am sorry to hear about your friend Bruce; and this is something that worries me from time to time, both for myself and also for my mum. But the truth is, if I sought medical advice every time I experienced the listed symptoms for heart attacks in women, I would pretty much have to set up a permanent camp at the Doctor's.

[Rhianne]

I'm sorry to hear about your friend.

The pain thing can be deceptive. I had a heart attack myself very nearly a year ago and afterwards friends and family would ask me about the pain which I was happy to tell them was uncomfortable rather than sheer agony. Only later, when recalling my first discussions with the staff at A+E (ER) did I remember a doctor asking me to rate the pain on a scale of one-to-ten. Eight or nine was what I told them. Morphine is a wonderful thing!

[glatt]

We have the big "fuck cancer" meme going on here in the Cellar (and I wholeheartedly agree since a friend is losing her fight with it) but it's easy to forget that the number one cause of death for American women is coronary heart disease. It's not even close.

http://www.americanheart.org/present...dentifier=4786

[classicman]

I'm sorry to hear about your friend, Bruce. My condolences to the family.

[Trilby]

Originally Posted by Rhianne

Morphine is a wonderful thing!

Morphine is an excellent choice for heart attack victims. It decreases the hearts need for O2 as well as controlling the pain.

[Cicero]

Call 911 I am having a heart attack..Or just a sleep disorder..hmmm...asthma?
There are more symptoms listed at www.mayoclinic.com. Hot flashes and anxiety is also indicated. Upper body pains are also included and may not coincidence with chest pressure. The symptoms are broad.

I am sorry about your friend Bruce. I am also very glad this has been brought to my attention. I will be sure to publish this lnfo elsewhere.

[Pie]

Originally Posted by The Mayo Clinic

Common heart attack symptoms include:
* Pressure, a feeling of fullness or a squeezing pain in the center of your chest that lasts for more than a few minutes
* Pain extending beyond your chest to your shoulder, arm, back, or even to your teeth and jaw
* Increasing episodes of chest pain
* Prolonged pain in the upper abdomen
* Shortness of breath
* Sweating
* Impending sense of doom
* Fainting
* Nausea and vomiting
Additional, or different, heart attack symptoms in women may include:
* Abdominal pain or heartburn
* Clammy skin
* Lightheadedness or dizziness
* Unusual or unexplained fatigue

Seven years ago, I went to the ER at 3am will all these symptoms. 'Twas gallstones, combined with a panic attack about having a damned heart attack!

[Shawnee123]

I have some of those symptoms: they're what prompted me to go to the doc and the subsequent CT scan which showed nothing.

It's scary: women worry about seeming to be a hypochondriac, but you feel like you just know something isn't right, but when immediate tests don't produce any results you start to think you might just be losing it. Of course, in my case, that's highly possible, but still...

Very sorry to hear about your friend Bruce.