A heart attack experience

Thursday 9th June 2005.

Got up at usual time and had my breakfast (two slices of toast and glass of orange squash) Looked in at the ubeat and UKworld woodworker sites.
Second good day of summer weather in the UK so decided to cut our front hedge.

Brief medical history:-
cholestrol = 4.75 (about 5% above average)
blood pressure = normal for age.
weight = around 6kgs overweight.
67 years of age.
No previous history.

Cut the hedge which goes to a height in places of 2 mtrs. and the job took
1 &1/2 hours, slightly longer than normal and 25% more waste bags were needed. I put my tools away and went to the bathroom for a shower, just before stepping into the shower I thought to myself I don't feel right.
AND THEN the chest pain arrived (its stronger than an indegestion pain) and breathing changed (it holds like an asthma attack at each deep breath)
I managed to get out of the bathroom quick and sat in a lounge chair and the wife fortunately appeared.

After repeated requests for cold flannels from the bathroom and pain not reducing we suggested a doctor call (15 minutes after start of any pain) who advised calling of an ambulance with his authority. The ambulance with two qualified paramedics arrived within 5 minutes who noted it was a chest pain call and immediately slapped on an oxygen mask. This is followed by an injection in the stomach of an anti coalesence drug to thin the blood. Final paramedic treatment was then a spray under the tongue to see if Angina pain disperses
but no significant reduction so morphine is then introduced via a special feeding tube at the back of the wrist. Pain feeling is still there but is now acceptable.
Transfer to the ambulance then proceeds and an ecg reading is taken which also transmits direct to the local hospital and the driver is then instructed which hospital he is to proceed to for treatment which I assume depends on the ECG reading

Had a lovely time at the hospital , this hospital practised unisex wards for chest pain patients.
No further attacks took event for me and an exploratry examination took place 3 days later followed the next day with a stent being inserted in an heart artery after a widening process had taken place.

If anyone wants to hear of my nightime experiences in the general type mixed ward over the 7days and nights I would be delighted to relate those times to you. Much laughter and tears however took place.

The thread above was written to inform any none experienced readers of what an heart attack is like but bearing in mind my own attack was most probably quite a minor trauma.

Very Glad to see you are able to tell us all about it

I think the moral may be keep out of the garden and stay in the shed where you can potter along at the right pace with proper wood tools.
Keep well Rgds
Russell


I don’t mind growing old, it sure beats the alternative.

Good to hear yer still with us.

My Dad had a heart attack about 3 years ago now, and with my being here it was one of the more feared things that can happen. He was ok, but he has also had a couple stents put in.

So, with what appears to be pretty good health, how did you wind up with ticker trouble? Family history or something the docs have missed?

I know why my dad had his, he had all the worst things couting against him. You name it, it's a reason for him but his too was quite mild.

Anyway, take it easy, please. :D

John,

After reading your story with some interest - I am in the same age group - it seemed to me that you were fortunate that your attack was not more serious. I am puzzled as to why you didn't get your wife to ring 999 for an ambulance immediately, rather than calling a doctor. I know the poms pride themselves on keeping a stiff upper lip and not making an unnecessary fuss, but a delay of 15 minutes, if a heart attack is serious, could have been fatal.

Rocker

We know a guy in his 50's who was sitting in his doctors office talking about some chest pain he'd had recently when he keeled over on the spot. It was a massive heart attack. The doctor leapt up and grabbed an injection of adrenalin which he administered directly to his heart. Saved his life because in a matter of seconds he would have been dead.

Sometimes you can be lucky.

Ironically those are the same words spoken to me by our Real Estate agent as he was placing the SOLD sticker over the For Sale sign at our recently sold house, in reference to the price we had got. Sadly, a week later exactly the same thing happened to him only he wasn't sitting in his doctor's office, he was playing cards with his family.

Look after yourself, John. Sounds like you've been given a warning...

About 12 months ago one of the guys I work with went to the GP because of persistant chest pain. The GP was dismissive, try blah blah and come back in a couple of days. Well he came back to work and said that the doc recons its nothing. One of the other guys instisted on taking him to the local hospital to be checked out. The hospital had a look at him and put him straight in to a bed with orders not to move. A specialist arrived shortly after with the news that he would be the surgeon doing the heart bypass operation. The surgeon rattled off statistics like 97% blocked, 93% blocked etc...

What really annoys me is that doctors always bang on about how hard it is to get blokes in to see a doctor. So when a overweight male of 55 plus years, high colestrol, high blood pressure says he has chest pain you would think it should be taken seriously.http://www.woodworkforums.ubeaut.com...ons/icon13.gif

The moral of the story is that you really need to be in charge of your own health. If the answer don't sound right get a second opion.

Unfortunately not all get a warning, a friend of mine died of a massive coronary when he was 35, jogged every day, non smoker non drinker no history then fell over in the shower.
I check my levels every year, and despite all who know me my cholesterol and trygliserides (sp) are low, I even do a bit of walking, don't smoke but have a craving for good reds and single malts.

G'day Woody,

Wishing you a speedy recovery... and heaps of time out in the shed

The best heart attack is one you can write about later. Glad to see that you are ok. It's a very valuable thread, because a lot of people sit out the pain and ignore those warnings.
PS. On a lighter and very tasteless note, you are a very brave man mentioning on an Aussie forum that you were getting in the shower when you had the heart attack. As another ex-pom, and long time Aussie, who has been told on many occasions that I come for the 'land of the long dry towel' I wouldn't be that game. :D :D

That must have been a very worrying time, but thankfully your wife was on hand. What if you had been alone, or out in your car? Many people know how to perform CPR on others, but were you trained to help yourself if the need arises? The following may help:

"Since many people are alone when they suffer a heart attack, without help, the person whose heart is beating improperly and who begins to feel faint, has only about 10 seconds left before losing consciousness.

However, you can help yourself by coughing repeatedly and very vigorously. A deep breath should be taken before each cough and the cough must be deep and prolonged, as when producing sputum from deep inside the chest.

A breath and a cough must be repeated about every two seconds without let-up until help arrives, or until the heart is felt to be beating normally again.

Deep breaths get oxygen into the lungs and coughing movements squeeze the heart and keep the blood circulating.

The squeezing pressure on the heart also helps it regain normal rhythm. In this way, heart attack victims can get to a hospital."

Ray.

copied partly from the ukwoodworking site if interested.


Since strokes were mentioned, many people don't know how to recognise one. This may assist:

"Sometimes symptoms of a stroke are difficult to identify. Unfortunately, the lack of awareness spells disaster.

The stroke victim may suffer brain damage when people nearby fail to recognise the symptoms of a stroke. A bystander can recognise a stroke by three simple actions:

Ask the individual to smile.
Ask him or her to raise both arms.
Ask the person to speak a simple sentence.

If he or she has trouble with any of these tasks, call an Ambulance immediately and describe the symptoms to the controller.

Widespread use of this test could result in prompt diagnosis, treatment of the stroke and the prevention of brain damage."

Ray.

Only posted as information that might be helpful in the future.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jow104

Ask the individual to smile.
Ask him or her to raise both arms.
Ask the person to speak a simple sentence.

If he or she has trouble with any of these tasks, call an Ambulance immediately and describe the symptoms to the controller.

.

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Sounds like me after a heavy night on the grog, hic............

Al :D

Quote:

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Sounds like me after a heavy night on the grog, hic............

Al

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So everyday you have problems smiling, speaking and lifting your arms?

Yup!!

But I can still type, funny isnt it? :confused:

Al :D

Ray
could your recent attack have been in any way brought about by your recent
trip to Oz
D V T long flight trips.
Peter.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ptc

Ray
could your recent attack have been in any way brought about by your recent
trip to Oz
D V T long flight trips.
Peter.

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Peter correction Ray should read jow104?

As regards flight I shall never know.?

but

The first leg of the flight this year was awful. an allergy started about 2 hours into the flight (streaming nose like hay fever, never been a sufferer before) and only stopped on flight change at Tokio. There were two or three other sufferers as well. At the time I though it might be some debugging divice :(

I did have another trip booked for this year but the travel insurance has now imposed heart treatment conditions or giving me a full refund of any bookings I had made. Not bad after only $300 paid a month ago????????

Welcome to the club.

Had my first MCI at 45 with one stent inserted, Two more within a week 18 months later with a further 2 stents. That was January 1999.

Every day now is brighter than the last even though I went through a depressive episode afterwards - useless mortal stuff. :o

Someone else mows the lawn and cuts hedges now, between fishing woodworking and tinkering here and there I'm buggered if I know how I ever had time to go to work. :p

Good health and wealth to you and the future.

Jamie

Woody

I just caught up with your post. I hijacked a post with some pictures of Queensland along the lines of what you have just gone through but I ended up having a quadruple bypass which is just a little more painfull than stents and hopefully will be going home this weekend.

Here is the Hijack. http://www.woodworkforums.ubeaut.com...light=Ipswitch

and here is the result.

http://www.woodworkforums.ubeaut.com...ad.php?t=18587

All the best Woody Like me you need to take it easy.

Quote:

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Had my first MCI at 45

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:eek:

I went to bed last night and something I ate must've disagreed with me. Shortly after I lay down, I started getting a pain in the top end of my gut. I lay there for awhile thinking about this thread and maybe this is it, I'm a gonner at 39. I got up, had an Alka Seltzer, went back to bed and slept like a baby. I had the ticker checked out a few years ago as part of a health thing and there was no sign of any problems. Maybe I should book in for another look see...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by silentC

:eek:

I went to bed last night and something I ate must've disagreed with me. Shortly after I lay down, I started getting a pain in the top end of my gut. I lay there for awhile thinking about this thread and maybe this is it, I'm a gonner at 39. I got up, had an Alka Seltzer, went back to bed and slept like a baby. I had the ticker checked out a few years ago as part of a health thing and there was no sign of any problems. Maybe I should book in for another look see...

---

The interesting thing is in this country if you go into any hospital emergency ward with chest pain they always take it seriously and will give you a thorough check up and not make you feel embarrased if it is only indigestion.

It is all the better if you go in at 3am in the morning as you will certainly be at the head of the queue.DAMHIK.

One of the questions they ask us is how bad the pain is on a level of 1 to 10.
I said how do I know what a 10 is and they said a 10 is equivelent to an elephant sitting on your chest. Mine was about a 5 to 6 and they and they took that very seriously. I am glad they did.

I wonder if it's the same for a 30 something year old? Never had that experience thankfully but if it's anything like women and breast cancer, young people might have trouble convincing a doctor there is something wrong with them. Although I suppose that perception is changing.

I went to the doctor several years ago because I noticed I had what they call an ectopic beat. It's basically a double beat every now and then. First I had to convince the doctor that it was even there, she thought I was a hypochondriac. Eventually she relented and sent me to a cardiologist. They hooked me up to the machine that goes bing and managed to capture one of them on tape. Then I had the interview with the cardiologist, who was probably 10 years younger than me. Reading between the lines, although he said there was no sign of heart disease, I got the impression that he thought it was a waste of his time owning to my age. He even used the phrase "at your age" a couple of times. Then I read about people dropping dead at 35!!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by silentC

:eek:

I went to bed last night and something I ate must've disagreed with me. Shortly after I lay down, I started getting a pain in the top end of my gut. I lay there for awhile thinking about this thread and maybe this is it, I'm a gonner at 39. I got up, had an Alka Seltzer, went back to bed and slept like a baby. I had the ticker checked out a few years ago as part of a health thing and there was no sign of any problems. Maybe I should book in for another look see...

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Can I suggest that next time you're seeing the quack, see what he thinks about having a scan for gallstones. 3 of us in the family (SWMBO, daughter & I) have all had similar symptoms, with the same result.

I'm starting to think the gall bladder is the new appendix. :rolleyes:

Mum had one of them. Size of a tom bowler. Had the whole gall bladder removed. People used to say she had a lot of gall. Not any more :D