Silent Killer Red Flags - Heart Health

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The Weird Symptoms That Signal You’re Just Days Away from Cardiac Arrest

Find out the red flags that point to this quick and deadly condition

By Christa Sgobba December 22, 2015

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A top “silent killer” of men may not be as quiet as once thought: Half of all men who experience sudden cardiac arrest actually notice symptoms within the weeks before it strikes, a new study from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center found.
Sudden cardiac arrest occurs when your heart abruptly stops beating, due to defective electrical activity in your ticker. It’s different from a heart attack, where clogged arteries block off blood flow to the muscle.

If it’s not treated with a defibrillator—a device that shocks the heart to restore its rhythm—most people die within minutes. In fact, only about 7 percent survive it.

Sudden cardiac arrest was thought to occur without warning. But red flags can surface up to four weeks before, the researchers discovered.
Related: Could You Have Had a Heart Attack—and Not Even Known It?
While the most common symptoms reported were chest pain and difficulty breathing, there were some signs that seemed to have nothing to do with your heart.
Of the patients who experienced symptoms, 20 percent reported miscellaneous maladies like abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting, and back pain, 10 percent reported flu-like symptoms, and 5 percent said they fainted.
People who called 911 right after experiencing those initial symptoms were five times as likely to survive their subsequent cardiac arrest than those who ignored them, says study author Sumeet Chugh, M.D.
“Medical intervention at this early juncture—a time window that we didn’t realize existed—may be able to pre-empt the sudden cardiac arrest,” he says.

Still, only 19 percent of them called 911 to report symptoms before suffering cardiac arrest.
So when should you seek medical care for these symptoms? More research is needed for the general population before any specific recommendations can be made based on the study, says Dr. Chugh.
But if you have heart disease, any new or unexpected symptoms warrant medical attention, he adds.

As for young, healthy guys? The risk of sudden cardiac death rises sharply with age, and with risk factors like a family history or underlying conditions like diabetes or high blood pressure.
So if you’re feeling like you have the flu, chances are more likely it’s the bug rather than sudden cardiac arrest.
However, you should be on the lookout for symptoms that keep creeping back: In the study, of the patients who noticed warning signs, 93 percent of them experienced a recurrence within 24 hours of the event.

Surviving Congestive Heart Failure/AFIB in Your 50s !!

November 21, 2014

Well today things are looking a bit better.  Recently I had an echocardiogram (pictures of my heart; they look a lot like a baby sonogram believe it or not).  My heart doctors have determined from the echo that I can now stop wearing my portable defibrillator and that I don't need currently to have a defibrillator installed into my body.  My heart is at about 45% of operating capacity now.  Apparently in a healthy person the heart operates at 80%.  When I entered the hospital in July my heart was at 20% or a bit less.    45% is considered a vast improvement and the thinking is that my heart will continue to improve.  Occasionally my heart feels a bit queer but that is considered OK.  I feel no pain.

But that has been the case since it was determined that I had Congestive Heart Failure (CHF) in July.  Again to me CHF is a terrible old-fashioned phrase that should be updated, made new and improved.  CHF as a phrase scared me (almost to death ! ha-ha!).  I heard the word "failure" and I thought of death, my death.  CHF made me think of very unhealthy old people, not me.  Being "only" in my 50s I felt I was too young to die.  When my heart was doing crazy things in late July I felt nothing.  I felt no pain or discomfort in my heart.  (Other than not being able to walk, breath or talk.)  They can do wonders these days with CHF, things they could not do even 5 years ago.

When my heart rate was racing upward to crazy high levels or dropping precipitously to too slow beats I felt nothing.  This atrial fibrillation or afib or abnormal heart rhythms is something they addressed when they did an ablation on me to stop/cut off/"kill" the flow of some extra electrical currents I had flowing in my heart.  The ablation has been successful.  In the hospital my afib caused the monitors attached to me to go haywire and caused alarms to literally go off several times.  When this happened 2 doctors and 3 to 4 nurses came running into my room a number of times expecting to find me unconscious and about to die, or perhaps already dead.  Instead I was always awake and I always felt nothing, no pain or discomfort, in fact I felt well.?!  Go figure.  Strange but true.

The other issue with my heart was the viral infection that had been sitting in my heart dormant for about a couple of years per the doctors' estimation, from some cold I had fought off a couple of years ago.  They determined this from a cardiac MRI they did in the hospital.  It was terrible!!!!!!!!!  I had weights on my chest and all sorts of monitors and I was in the machine for two and 1/2 hours (2 1/2).  It was very claustrophobic and difficult.  I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.  I chickened out twice (with all the stuff on my chest they couldn't get me into the machine properly two times; both times they got me into the machine for a couple of minutes and then had to take me out because the fit was not right.  Each of these times I said no more I give up and I physically climbed to a sitting position.)  The third time was the charm!  Frankly the only thing that got me through it besides a great nurse was thinking about all of you, my family, each and every one of you separately and together, and Pressler, Winn and Amy.

So there you are just some thoughts for you guys.  Love ME