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Different Symptoms

© Paula Ferron

Did you know that only 40 percent of women suffering their first heart attack survive? One of the reasons is probably that our symptoms can be different. Because of that we may have a tendency to ignore the symptoms, or rationalize that because they are not what we have learned are the signs, they couldn’t possibly mean an attack. Wrongo.

Sometimes even our doctors don’t recognize what is happening. And that can be deadly.

I have now heard of women who had no chest pain, simply flu symptoms. One lady had pain only in the roof of her mouth. These women survived a heart attack.

Recently, while reading in bed I began to have a ‘feeling’ in my chest. I have never had heartburn, so didn’t know if that is what it was. It was a burning, pulling, pushing, didn’t want to breathe kindof feeling. You can probably tell it is hard to describe. I got up and took five antacids, determined to get rid of it. After a few minutes, my jaw began really throbbing, which I took to be a horrible toothache even though I have had no dental problems. And I had some killer hot flashes. Spent the rest of the night feeling sorry for my husband who has heartburn often, and praying it would just go away.

A heart attack didn’t occur to me because I am only 40 and I didn’t feel like I had a large pressure on my chest, my left arm didn’t hurt, I didn’t think I was clammy. In short, nothing I often look for when hubby has heartburn.

The next morning I was very shaky, nauseated, and my jaw pain was horrible. I could only take a few steps before needing to stop and breathe. Drove the kids to school, returned home and called my sister long distance while I waited for a dental clinic to open. Being a nurse, and having gone through this with our father with his several heart attacks, she strongly urged me to go to the hospital and rule out heartburn. So, I labored thru a shower and drove myself to the hospital.

Even though I wear a medic alert bracelet detailing my severe latex allergy along with my drug allergies, I still told each person, including the receptionist, of my sensitivity. I also informed her the persons seeing me needed to be wearing no perfume or cologne, or hairspray, and couldn’t have used any powdered latex gloves that morning. Even our tiny hospital rose to the challenge. They had a special crash cart just for my needs and I was informed that since they had three hospital workers who had severe sensitivities to latex, they had switched to all non-latex gloves throughout the hospital. The only time a slip occurred was when they failed to inform the blood tech of my latex sensitivity and she had to get the supplies for the blood draw from the crash cart.

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