Picture a heart attack survivor, and Jennifer Podkasik of Naperville is not the image that pertains to mind.
Imagine exactly how a heart attack happens, and the means Podkasik’s struck is not the norm, either.
But exactly what the health-conscious 36-year-old learned because her unexpected ordeal is a good lesson for others love her, doctors say. Heart attacks frequently reveal different symptoms in women compared to in men, and they can easily happen even to those that are young and otherwise fit and healthy.
“It’s so rare and unexpected and it takes you off-course along with your life,” Podkasik said.
Research on heart attacks in women is building — enough that the American Heart Association released its very first scientific statement on the topic this year on the eve of American Heart Month in February. The document suggests a lot more need to be done to guidance women and medical professionals understand heart attack symptoms and improve aftercare — both bodily and mental — for women recovering from attacks, said lead author Dr. Laxmi Mehta, a cardiologist at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center.
Heart attacks, she said, kill 53,000 women across the country each year and roughly 6.6 million women are affected by heart disease.
“Deaths from cardio disease are on the decline in both genders, Yet a lot more women are dying,” Mehta said. “In the past we believed young women would certainly be protected as a result of their estrogen, and that’s not necessarily the case.”
Women such as Podkasik could believe they’re safe as a result of their lifestyle selections — consuming a balanced diet, exercising, keeping cholesterol levels and blood tension low, not smoking, managing stress.
But the brand-new Heart Association statement says heart attacks occur often in women even devoid of a blockage in the coronary artery, which is exactly what usually triggers an attack. Women can easily experience heart attacks as a result of a spasm in the coronary artery or a spontaneous tear, and doctors say these troubles can easily happen unpredictably.
“You’re working out and consuming healthy and balanced and doing every little thing you need to — and then you have actually this huge, traumatic event along with this organ that keeps your physique alive,” Podkasik said. “It took almost an entire year to start to feel a brand-new normal.”
Surprise heart attack
Jennifer Podkasik of Naperville was doing her daughter’s hair one fall day in 2014 as soon as she experienced a heart attack. She says her family, including 2-year-old Olivia, husband Curt, 7-year-old twins Ava and Mia, and 9-year-old Jacob, have actually been most important supporters throughout her recovery. – Paul Michna | Staff Photographer
Podkasik was getting her daughter’s hair all set for school concerning 7:4five the morning of Oct. 20, 2014, as soon as her second strange symptom struck.
“All the sudden I felt love a hot tear in my chest,” Podkasik said. “It became quite intense, quite quick.”
It was the very first sign she recognized that something was wrong, despite the fact that she’d been having exactly what she believed was unusual acid reflux, an uncomfortable feeling love a thick bile rising in her chest, for the past few weeks.
Podkasik walked in to her kitchen to tell her husband, Curt, exactly what she was feeling. She buckled under the burning pain and Curt suggested it may be a panic attack.
Not prone to anxiety, Podkasik believed it was something else. Breathing remained a struggle. Soon a book morning driving the couple’s three youngsters to school became a rushed trip to the Edward Hospital emergency room — not by ambulance Yet along with Curt behind the wheel.
In the ER, nurses and doctors ran an electrocardiogram — a test used to gauge heart function — and told Podkasik exactly what was going on. Here she was, mid-thirties, a frequent exerciser and eater of organic food, a mother of four along with none of the typical risk factors or storybook symptoms, and she was having a heart attack.
‘Silent’ symptoms
Podkasik didn’t know it, Yet doctors say she suffered vital symptoms that are “atypical,” yet occur a lot more frequently in women compared to men.
The “Hollywood heart attack” features chest pain or tension and a dramatic collapse, doctors say. The real-life woman’s heart attack can easily feel fairly different, especially if it’s a so-called “silent” attack.
“It can easily be burning, not pressure,” Mehta said. “Women can easily have actually unusual shortness of breath, spine pain, arm pain, dizziness, intense fatigue, indigestion or intense heart burn.”
These discomforts don’t scream “heart attack!”
“Women tend to under-understand or deny them,” she said.
In fact, women delay treatment of heart attack symptoms much longer compared to men — a median time of 54 hours rather than 16, according to one study Mehta reviewed.
Podkasik said she’s fortunate she didn’t wait. She advises all women to take their discomforts seriously.
“I am so thankful that I insisted on going to the hospital,” Podkasik said. “If something is serious or your gut is telling you something is wrong, don’t waste time.”
Four hours after a heart attack begins, muscle damage starts to occur, said Dr. Annabelle Volgman, medical director of the Rush Heart Focus for Women in Chicago. And delaying treatment could enhance likelihood of death.
“Every minute counts in recognizing the symptoms of a heart attack in women,” Volgman said. “There is still a lot of energetic research in to why women have actually these kinds of symptoms and exactly what are the symptoms that women feel due to the fact that we don’t hope to miss out on them.”
Doctors likewise are pushing paramedics and emergency room nurses to much better understand atypical heart attack symptoms as they respond to 911 calls and prioritize exactly how promptly patients receive care.
Says Mehta: “Education of the nurses on the difference in symptoms is actually vital.”
Long-term solutions
What happens after a heart attack can easily be merely as challenging as the crisis itself.
Podkasik said every day of her yearlong recovery left her wondering if her heart would certainly offer out again.
Jennifer Podkasik of Naperville says a “there was certainly a greater power watching over my house” the day she had a heart attack in October 2014. – Courtesy of Jennifer Podkasik
Doctors handled her case well medically, she said. They eventually determined her attack could have actually been caused by a spontaneous tear in her coronary artery or due to the fact that she had a hole in her heart that allowed a clot to pass through and interrupt its regular beating. She has actually because had surgery to close the hole.
“It came down to the doctors saying we’ll never know exactly exactly what caused it, Yet we know that the odds of you having a second one are very rare,” she said.
Emotionally, she and Curt both wished for a lot more support, a lot more understanding, a lot more connections to others that have actually experienced similarly shocking heart attacks.
“You should hear that you’re going to be OK,” Podkasik said.
The necessity for reassurance could be even stronger among the young, healthy and balanced subset of women that survive heart attacks due to the fact that they feel confused concerning why it happened, Mehta said. Science likewise remains unsure why some women’s arteries tear, seemingly from nowhere, and exactly what can easily be done to steer clear of it.
“What’s likewise frustrating for these women is there’s no actual means to tell as soon as that would certainly occur,” Mehta said. “There’s a lot of angst along with that sort of heart attack.”
When Volgman gets brand-new patients at Rush she refers them to discover a peer group through WomenHeart, a national coalition for women along with heart disease.
“It is a quite emotional thing, and these women necessity support,” she said.
Jennifer Podkasik, 36, of Naperville, says she’s fortunate she sought treatment immediately for a tearing pain in her chest and arm numbness that turned out to be a heart attack. – Paul Michna | Staff Photographer
As doctors offer mental and emotional support for recovering patients, they keep on to probe the “why” behind the a lot more unexplainable heart attacks in younger, otherwise healthy and balanced women. Volgman said 80 percent of heart attacks can easily be prevented along with lifestyle changes, Yet the remaining 20 percent occur as a result of outlying risks that are difficult to spot.
That’s why doctors, including Mehta, recommend increasing women’s participation in cardio research trials so the very best diagnostic and treatment ways can easily be found.
“In the past 10 years we’ve ramped up the quantity of data we have actually concerning women and heart attacks,” Mehta said. “Yet there are still gaps in knowledge that we find.”