by erin thursby scopes1925@msn.com
This is the season of love, how better to cap it off than by thinking of our hearts? February is a month of many things, not the least of which is Healthy Heart month. The American Heart Association asked EU if we could help spread the word about maintaining healthy hearts. We are committed to helping Jacksonville learn how easy and necessary it is to take good care of our hearts, so we talked with the good people over at the American Heart Association and got some great tips, found some local heart-healthy restaurants, and even ran a half-marathon. That is how over-the-top we go in coverage for our beloved community. So take heart, Jacksonville, you are loved and this is how we show it.
Heart disease and heart attacks have been thought of as a male problem for so long that women are still often misdiagnosed, even though heart disease is currently the number one killer of women in America.
Allison Teger, Spokesperson for WomenHeart, faced misdiagnosis before she had open-heart surgery last year. She’s just 41-years old, proving that heart disease can strike younger women.
What makes the difference for a woman with heart problems, she says, “is a combination of early detection, accurate diagnosis and proper treatment.”
As a child she was diagnosed with two congenital heart defects, both of which are fairly common. Many children are born with heart defects. Some never affect them during their lives, and many are never diagnosed.
Teger stopped getting heart check-ups after she was a teenager. At around 40-years of age, she began experiencing medical problems. She was tired and her jaw hurt. She fainted while in her closet, experiencing nausea and a cold sweat. When she came to, she called for an ambulance.
Teger was aware of what to look for because of her past medical history, so she thought that it might be her heart from the beginning. But because she’s slender, doesn’t smoke and was younger than most heart attack victims, doctors missed the signals. Instead, they told her she had a panic attack and anxiety.
She was, of course, anxious because of her symptoms, “but what they didn’t seem to know was that I was a licensed mental health counselor. I knew what a panic attack was supposed to be like, and this wasn’t it.”
So she kept pushing for more sophisticated tests, including an ultrasound of her heart. That test revealed her heart was enlarged, an enormous red flag. She also doctor-hopped in order to find a doctor who didn’t dismiss her concerns.
“When I finally found a good local doctor (Dr. Oken) at Mayo clinic in Jacksonville, he was able to diagnose that my mitral valve was severely regurgitating (leaking) and my atrial septal defect (ASD- a hole between the left upper chamber and the right upper chamber) was also leaking. He was kind enough to consult with a regional center of excellence for congenital heart defects at Mayo clinic in Minnesota, and we agreed it was time for surgery.”
She had more time to research and investigate than most women because of her early diagnosis.
After she found the right doctor and had open-heart surgery, she began working for WomenHeart, hoping to help other women in her same position.
Even if you’ve never had any kind of heart problems in the past, there are women who discover that they’ve lived with an undiagnosed heart defect all of their lives. Just because you’re twenty-five doesn’t mean you’re immune. The thing that can help with early detection and treatment is awareness. Know what the signs are and you’re halfway there. And, Teger says, “don’t be afraid to advocate for yourself.”
One of the scariest things about a heart attack is that women don’t always experience all, or sometimes even any, of the symptoms of a heart attack. But here are the symptoms and some stuff to look for, according to WomenHeart:
• Uncomfortable pressure, fullness, squeezing or pain in the center of the chest lasting more than a few minutes, or that goes away and comes back.
• Pain spreading to the shoulders, neck, upper back, jaw or arms.
• Chest discomfort with lightheadedness, fainting, sweating, nausea, or shortness of breath.
Some women have fewer chest symptoms, but do experience a range of other symptoms:
• Atypical chest pain, stomach or abdominal pain.
• Nausea or dizziness.
• Unexplained anxiety and nervousness, weakness or overwhelming tiredness.
• Cold, sweaty skin, and paleness.
• Swelling of the ankles and/or lower legs.
Numerous women suffer shortness of breath or indigestion that accompanies heart muscle pain, or angina, which is a first warning sign of blocked heart arteries. The pain means that the heart is not getting enough oxygen because not enough blood and oxygen can get to your heart through your arteries. Angina typically goes away after exertion and eased by rest. It is often not particularly painful. Tell your doctor if you are experiencing angina, as there are many effective methods and medicines to treat it. Untreated angina can lead to a heart attack.
“Silent” heart attacks often accompany a condition called “silent ischemia”, which is a long-term shortage of blood and oxygen to the heart due to the gradual accumulation of plaque in the arteries. You are more likely to have ischemia if you have at least three risk factors for heart disease (smoking, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, lack of exercise, and obesity) and are a post-menopausal woman. If this sounds like you, ask your doctor to perform a cardiac stress test - a workout on a treadmill that traces how well your heart is performing - to determine if you have ischemia.
Women often delay treatment for heart problems because they believe that only crushing chest pain is a symptom of a heart attack. As you can tell from the above list, that is far from the case.
“Once a woman is found to have high risk factors (including her family history) or heart disease, proper treatment for her is vital to her survival,” says Teger, whose own family and medical history led her to push for more testing.
The first thing you’ll want to do is to call an ambulance or get to an emergency room as quickly as possible. Chew a full strength aspirin with a glass of water to prevent further clotting. Once you get to the hospital, do insist that the doctor or nurse administer an EKG test or an enzyme blood test, even if the doctors attribute it to a different cause. It’s your heart and your life!
Remember, too, that there is a window of time in which those tests will work. Too soon and the blood enzymes won’t have time to enter the blood stream, too late and they will have already been absorbed into the body.
First and foremost, a woman will want to have their doctor assess their risk for heart disease. Family history is one of those factors. Even if every person in your family to die of a heart attack has been a man, it still counts as a risk factor.
Next, you’ll want to get your cholesterol, blood pressure and blood sugar checked out. High cholesterol, blood sugar or blood pressure tends to up your chances of having heart problems. Diabetics, smokers, those who are overweight or just physically inactive all have a higher chance of developing heart issues, among other things. Eating right, quitting smoking and exercising can all lower these risk factors. Unlike family history, it’s something that you can control.
The American Heart Association is just one of the resources that can give you information on both preventative measures and where to go to get screened for factors (such as high cholesterol) which cause heart disease.
Specifically regarding women and heart disease, you can go to the WomenHeart website at womenheart.org. There you’ll find tips, information and stories of women who suddenly had to deal with heart disease.
“WomenHeart,” Teger explains, “is the only national advocacy organization devoted to meeting the needs of women with heart disease. We provide support, information and advocacy for the public and medical community. Their goal is to help the public realize that early detection is key. Until recently, the need to fully screen, diagnose, and treat women has mostly been overlooked.”
WomenHeart is starting a support group for women with heart disease on March 1st at Baptist Medical Center at 12:30 pm.
Article Published in the 2-21-08 Issue of EU Jacksonville
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