I had a heart attack this weekend...please, please read.

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  • JediMaster_intraining
    JediMaster_intraining Posts: 903 Member
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    Glad you are ok! I hope you have a speedy recovery. Thanks for sharing. I guess it can happen to anyone!
  • lisabruce12
    lisabruce12 Posts: 77 Member
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    Glad to hear you are ok!
  • Pizzagirl50
    Pizzagirl50 Posts: 112 Member
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    Yikes. I get chest pain all the time while running. Making a doctors appointment tomorrow. You might have saved my life. THANK YOU for sharing your story.
  • elevatorguy925
    elevatorguy925 Posts: 45
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    Glad ypu are still with us! I had a heart attack in 08 and kept working, didn't go to the doctor for two days. No history in family and no warnings. We all heed to heed the signs we get and follow up with the doctor. Any shortness of breath or pains should be checked out.
  • Sumo813
    Sumo813 Posts: 566 Member
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    It was not due to cholesterol or plaque, that was all normal. It was because something broke loose and got into the circumflex artery and platelets started sticking, causing a block. One cardioligist believes it was because of strenuous exercise. There is no way to tell for sure, but I just started my 3rd month abd am sending Chalean back. I can't take any chances. I can walk as much as I want after I heal. I just want to let others know that if you EVER have chest pains, PLEASE TAKE IT SERIOUSLY. I started having chest pains Saturday morning and went to the er. It wasn't until this morning that they were 100% sure it was a heart attak. Innow have a stack of medicine that I will be on for a longtime.

    So glad you went to the ER and got checked and that you are still here...

    I had suspected I had heart problems for years. Pain in the chest (usually very sharp and I could pinpoint almost exactly where it hurt), that radiated into the left arm and lower portion of the jaw on the left side. Went to the doc, did EKG and it showed normal. So I went to a cardiologist and did a stress test. He indicated that the stress test was normal. I was still having pain and ended up doing a nuclear stress test (when they shoot you up with dye before and during the stress test). Came back indicating the heart was/is strong and bloodflow was/is good. Went on for about another year feeling this way before getting to a gastroenterologist... turns out I have pretty inflammatory GERD. Which sucks because I LOVE hot sauce.

    I still get these pains and I still freak the hell out. Even after taking Nexium on a daily basis. My biggest thing is now I am conditioned to brush the pain off as reflux. Not a good feeling at all, to know that I could potentially have a heart attack and not even know it. So I 2nd what you stress... if you suspect heart problems, go to the ER. Of course women may experience different symptoms which may not seem like a heart attack at all.
  • ElizaRoche
    ElizaRoche Posts: 2,005 Member
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    all the ppl MUST take exercising seriously....
    I had this cousin, he was my age.. sooo into fitness and going to the gym and doing weights everyday. His heart couldnt handle and he died one hour after his workout.
    Glad and happy you are still with us!, but please to all the ppl that exercise a lot, specially if you do weights, take it seriously, go to the doctor and hire a personal trainer if possible.
  • Michellerawrrr
    Michellerawrrr Posts: 312 Member
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    Thank you for sharing this very important message. Cheers to you and to many years of good health. My dad passed at the young age of 52 from ignoring symptoms. So glad you went to the ER right away!!
  • TrainingWithTonya
    TrainingWithTonya Posts: 1,741 Member
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    Glad you are going to be okay. From the way you describe it, you had an embolism. That's basically a blood clot and they can happen for any number of reasons, breaking loose after surgery or other injury, atrial fibrillation, birth control pills, etc. Exercise is usually not to blame but it can make the problem worse when nobody knows there's a problem. My internship was in Cardiac Rehab and I highly recommend asking your doctor about putting you into a Cardiac Rehab program. There you will have exercise physiologists and nurses who monitor you while you are exercising to see how you are responding to exercise. They will start you out slow with just some light cardio exercises and depending on how you do, they may progress you up to more strenuous exercise including weight training. But, they progress you up to being able to do it in a safer manner then starting a program at home. I wouldn't send back that Chalene yet, though. They may very well get you to where you can do it eventually. One of my cardiac patients runs marathons, lifts weights, and is generally in better shape them most Americans, so I know it is possible to come back from a heart attack and be able to handle a little Chalene. :wink:
    16 years Certified Personal Trainer and Group Exercise Instructor
    9 years Certified Sports Nutritionist
    Bachelors in Exercise Physiology with a Minor in Nutritional Science
    ACSM Certified Clinical Exercise Specialist
    NSCA Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist
  • lou1618
    lou1618 Posts: 96 Member
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    thanks for sharing , I think we sometimes will ignore signs like things because we think that since we are trying to more active and live a more healthier lifesltye that there's no way we could or would have an heart attack......hope u get better soon.
  • Mindmovesbody
    Mindmovesbody Posts: 399 Member
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    Oh my. I'm so happy that you are ok. It's rather ironic..... My father had a stroke in February after an Insanity work out. Before that, last year in May he had an 'episode' where he thought he was having a stroke and they diagnosed him with a complicated migraine and sent him home. Ironically enough he had done the P90x yoga disc that morning. We now believe that the first incident last year in May started loosening plaque causing mini strokes and then this past February, the morning he did the Insanity and had the stroke it finally broke free and it formed a clot on his baslar artery. He has both of those programs and ChaLEAN extreme. Needless to say he is no longer using any of them. He does the elliptical in the morning and walks at night and doesn't eat any fat other than the 'incidental' fats that he gets through cooking oils and such. This stuff is serious. He walked away with hardly any residual effects. He has a hole in his vision in his right side and gets dizzy spells which we believe is his blood sugars acting up because of the diet change. Interesting info....he eats hardly ANY fat....follows Dr. Dean Ornish's plan for heart disease reversal and he has lost 16 lbs since February!! He eats as much fruits and veggies as he wants. No nuts or seeds and no calorie counting. We are talking about a healthy 55 yr old man, it's crazy. Genetics plays a scary role too.

    So glad you are still around to warn others! Thank you and kudos to you for posting this!!!
  • stefanieceleste0530
    stefanieceleste0530 Posts: 177 Member
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    Wow! So glad you're ok! Take care of yourself!!
  • Sumo813
    Sumo813 Posts: 566 Member
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    all the ppl MUST take exercising seriously....
    I had this cousin, he was my age.. sooo into fitness and going to the gym and doing weights everyday. His heart couldnt handle and he died one hour after his workout.
    Glad and happy you are still with us!, but please to all the ppl that exercise a lot, specially if you do weights, take it seriously, go to the doctor and hire a personal trainer if possible.

    There was an article in Men's Health about the stress that marathon runners put on their heart... pretty scary that being "fit" can actually be harmful to our healthy. Sorry to hear of your cousin. But hopefully people understand the message and listen to their body.
  • Justacoffeenut
    Justacoffeenut Posts: 3,808 Member
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    Glad you got to the doctor in time. Hope you will recover quickly. And hope everyone else is safe and listens to there bodies.
  • Papillon22
    Papillon22 Posts: 1,160 Member
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    I'm glad you're ok!
  • Donnacoach
    Donnacoach Posts: 540 Member
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    Glad you are still with us. Take care of you.
  • w8sarge
    w8sarge Posts: 3,856 Member
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    Glad you are OK. Don't worry about being on meds for a very long time, just concentrate on feeling better. Things can change for the better bit by bit just like we all learn here on mfp.

    You did everyone a great service by posting your story. Best wishes for a full recovery and renewed health.
  • SwimTheButterfly
    SwimTheButterfly Posts: 265 Member
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    I am glad you shared this and that you went to the ER. Good to hear that you are recovering. I hope you slowly work back to working out.

    Yeah, it is really hard to know when that will happen. We had a friend die a year ago who was NEVER overweight. He had normal blood pressure. He was a FIREFIGHTER and was running about 110miles a month. He had every test in the world while getting checked before becoming a firefighter...treadmill blood oxygen levels, blood tests, EKGS,....everything except a CAT scan & MRI..which were the only ways they could have found his blocked arteries...he died while running a cross country road race here in Oregon. One minute our friend Joe Brooks was alive..the next dead. There are no guarantees in this life.

    I constantly monitor my HR while working out. I am obese, but work out hard. But I have worked up to that. One must elevate the heart rate to burn fat and one must elevate the heart rate to improve the heart rate.

    Exercise can improve and prevent a heart attack. A study done by a German Cardiologist: Rainer Hembrecht found that heart patients who exercised could improve heart function to a greater degree than those who did not exercise but got a heart stent or other medical technology intervention. This year long study showed that those heart patients who exercised had an 88% rate of NO incidents, as opposed to those who had medical intervention, who had a rate of 70% of no incident after the medical procedure.


    " Regular exercise in patients with stable coronary artery disease has been shown to improve myocardial perfusion and to retard disease progression. We therefore conducted a randomized study to compare the effects of exercise training versus standard percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) with stenting on clinical symptoms, angina-free exercise capacity, myocardial perfusion, cost-effectiveness, and frequency of a combined clinical end point (death of cardiac cause, stroke, CABG, angioplasty, acute myocardial infarction, and worsening angina with objective evidence resulting in hospitalization)."

    Here is the link to the study Rainer Hembrecht study: http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/109/11/1371

    Here is a great lecture about the benefits of exercising, even just 1/2 hour a day, by Dr. Evans:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUaInS6HIGo
  • ser0630
    ser0630 Posts: 223
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    Glad to hear that you're okay! That is scary. Speaking of that, you're the second person I've heard of that has had a heart attack--even when working out regularly. A friend's dad was a regular runner for 25 years and is now having issues with his heart.
  • Kristinemomof3
    Kristinemomof3 Posts: 636 Member
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    That is scary. Did the doc say anything could have prevented it?

    Nope, it may have jst been a fluke. No way of knowing for sure, but said lighter exercise from now on. Hopefully I can go home tomorrow.
  • JoolieW68
    JoolieW68 Posts: 1,879 Member
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    Very glad you are ok!

    I had a heart scare recently, too, and immediately had it checked out and after an echocardiogram got a clean bill of health. I also have reflux and a hiatal hernia, both of which can cause pain I the chest, so I am extra vigilant about knowing if a pain hits when to have it checked out.

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