Heart Attack Signs
by KFYR TV, Juli McDonald
Posted on 2/24/2010
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This year, 1.2 million people will suffer a heart attack. The older you get, the more likely you are to have one. And although some people may appear more likely to be stricken, it can also hit healthy people.
There are surgical procedures that can minimize the symptoms, at least for a while. For example, former President Bill Clinton was recently hospitalized to have two stents inserted after he experienced chest discomfort. Back in 2004, Clinton underwent quadruple bypass surgery to treat four blocked arteries. It is not unusual for patients to experience additional cardiac problems after bypass or stent surgeries, because neither procedure is actually fixing the problem.
“Seven hundred and five Bypass is bypassing the blockage. A stent is pushing the blockage out of the way. You haven’t fixed the process that caused the blockage to begin initially,” said Dr. John Windsor, chief of Cardiology at St. Alexius.
The original problem is inflammation inside the arteries. It leads to deposits of cholesterol which begin as a gooey, sticky substance, but turn into a hard material. A heart attack occurs when that plaque ruptures and forms a clot.
Don’t be fooled by the misconception, heart attacks do not just occur to the overweight or those with high blood pressure or cholesterol. They can also occur to those who appear physically fit.
Jim Fix was a marathon runner. He used to get chest pain but he’d run through it. He went out for a run one day and didn’t come back.
But someone doesn’t have to be under exertion to trigger a heart attack. Windsor says the most common time for a heart attack to occur is between 4:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m.: “It’s a time when the oxygen levels in the body are the lowest. When we sleep we breathe shallow and the demand on the body is the highest.”
Heart attacks can happen to anyone, it can build up over months or it can happen quickly.
If you have high blood pressure or high cholesterol, it’s important to treat those things. If you’re a diabetic, control your sugars. Talk to your doctor about screening tests, especially if you have a family history of cardiac problems. But the most important thing is to pay attention to warning signs, whether they are big or small.