Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Young women get heart attacks, too

On April 21, I received a call that my very good friend Millicent had just had a heart attack, driving to work on a freeway in south Minneapolis. I couldn't believe what I was hearing! She is in her early forties, in shape, and eats right! I knew heart disease is a serious health risk for women, but I just didn't think someone so young and healthy could get one. I was very wrong. Here are some sobering facts about women and heart attacks:
  • 435,000 American women have heart attacks annually; 83,000 are under age 65; 35,000 are under 55
  • 42% of women who have heart attacks die within 1 year, compared to 24% of men.
  • Under age 50, women’s heart attacks are twice as likely as men’s to be fatal.
  • 267,000 women die each year from heart attacks, which kill six times as many women as breast cancer. Another 31, 837 women die each year of congestive heart failure, representing 62.6% of all heart failure deaths.
The full fact sheet can be found here.

The wonderful news is that Millicent survived her heart attack and is doing fine. I asked her if she would write about her experience to educate women about needing to know the symptoms of a heart attack (they are different than the symptoms for men), and ways we can all make lifestyle changes to reduce our risk of having one.

Millicent agreed and here is her post:

~~~~

My heart attack was nothing like I thought it would be. No “I’m coming to see you, Elizabeth!” like Fred Sanford used to say. No lightning bolt of pain in my chest that made me fall instantly unconscious. No numb left arm or tingly fingers (until much later).

My heart attack was a gradual increase of pressure and pain that was unlike anything I ever felt before. Sort of like a strong, painful strumming in my chest. Think of the vibration a guitar string makes when you pluck it. That vibration is the sound you hear. I felt one long, painful, pressurized note that got progressively louder (more painful) as the seconds ticked by. It felt like a deep, strong vibration.

Toward the end, when I decided to call 911, is when the fear set in. I’m only 44, I’m pretty fit, is this really a heart attack? Am I going to die today?

FEAR is what made me call 911.
And FEAR is what saved my life.

If I hadn’t been afraid of dying too early of some ailment or disease, I wouldn’t have paid much attention to the symptoms of HEART ATTACK and STROKE for women. If I wasn’t afraid of getting stiff and out of shape in old age, I wouldn’t have tried to keep myself in reasonably decent shape all these years. And if I wasn’t afraid of passing out and having a wreck on the highway, I would not have pulled over when I did and called 911 for myself.

We women have to start being afraid again.
Be afraid to get out of shape!
Be afraid to die of some horrible disease!
Be afraid to become old and feeble.
These things are NOT INEVITABLE!

Please.

Eat LESS SALT! Our heart, kidneys, brain and liver can’t take it.
Eat LESS FAT! Our bodies aren’t made to carry it all.
Get more EXERCISE! Our bodies fall apart without it.

We can only take care of ourselves; no one else can do it for us.

I’m still afraid.
Are you with me??

~~~~

Related links:

7 comments:

  1. Thank you for the heads up, Millicent, and so glad you are recovering. What a scare! I'm with you!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you for this!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks Millicent for sharing your story. I am really happy it is a positive ending for you.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Excellent article! I too suffer from heart disease (Microvascular Coronary) at the ripe old age of 38. Thank you for spreading the word about heart disease in younger woman. Hope you are feeling better soon, Millicent!
    Rebecca Fortunato

    ReplyDelete
  5. I couldn't believe what I was reading at first! I'm so happy you're okay! My mom had a heart attack a year ago, but because of other health factors I didn't pay much mind. Thanks for telling your story Millicent and opening my eyes.

    -- Leah

    ReplyDelete
  6. A question: Is Millicent Flowers African American? Unfortunately, being African American makes you more likely to have a heart attack at younger ages despite being active and eating right. There's a commercial airing on Twin Cities TV now with a Black woman talking about how she was a 30-year-old personal trainer who had shortness of breath and chest pain; after bugging doctors for months, they detected two 90% blockages in the blood vessels near her heart.

    I'm a Black woman, and very early heart attack death among women runs in my mom's family. Her mom died of a heart attack at age 35; her younger sister died of one BEFORE SHE WAS 30! Neither one of these relatives of mine was obese, though they may not have had the best lifestyles (my grandma had a very hard life, and my aunt was a Type-A personality).

    I'm not obese, I'm very active and go to exercise classes, I don't eat cow meat or pork or cow dairy, I don't even keep table salt in my house. But guess what? My specific genetic inheritance and my overall higher risk as a Black person in the U.S. makes me at serious risk for a heart attack, especially since I'm in my very early 40s now.

    I wish people would talk and write more about inherited and ethnic risk and how healthy living can only do so much about that. When people have heart attacks, there's a tendency to blame them for it (they didn't eat right, they were fat, they didn't exercise, etc.) As with Ms. Flowers (whether she's Black or not) and the woman in the commercial, it can happen no matter what you do.

    Let's talk and write as much as we can about the various signs of heart attack and stroke that don't make the usual warning sign lists, as Ms. Flowers does, so we can all be watchful and hopefully save our own lives, as Ms. Flowers did. Most people know the ways to reduce your risk of heart attack or stroke, whether they do them or not. More information needs to be out there about warning signs and that IT CAN HAPPEN TO ANYONE, even if you are doing everything right.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Stephani, Yes Millicent is African American. Your comments really bring to light the even greater risk of heart attacks for African Americans. Thank you for adding to the conversation!

    ReplyDelete