o/t for mark-in heart attack what happend. long post

mark, i saw your question on my post about getting released yesterday, so i will give you a rundown as to what happened. i hope it will help others too. i am 55, 6ft2 and 200 lbs. pretty active, between the body shop, managing some rental propertys and the two farms, im on the go pretty much 7 days a week. i dont drink (tears up my stomach) eat pretty normal, drink coffee in the morning, then water and gatorade, ocassionally orangee juice. i have been a smoker since about 17, and switchhed to cigars about 15 years ago. last spring at the dentist she checks my blood pressure and it was a little high. not suprising as she is really pretty!!. bought a monitor from wallgreens and was keeping track during the day. sometimes high but pretty much normal. i figured the highs were just daily stresses at the shop. last fall at the urologist, they did the psa test, all normal, and my cholesteral. my bad cholesteral was good, but my good cholesteral was bad. so they said get more exercise and take fish oil vitamins. nothing really out of the ordinary. fast forward to lat thursday. had dinner at the mother in laws, baked chicken, veggies and mashed taters. also has a couple big helpings of pickled beets from the garden last year. . hadent had em in quite while, so they were a real treat. 3;30 am woke up with a major case of indigestion and profuse cold sweats. i figured either the beets didnt agree with me or i was getting the flu. got up had a glass of water and sat on the couch. had another couple glasses of water and took a couple aspirin. 4 am the sweating was getting worse and the pain in my stomach getting worse. woke up my wife and told her i was sick. she sat with me for about a half hour or so, i started getting dizzy. told her maybe we should go to the hospital. got there a little before 5:30 i guess, i was pretty dizzy by now. er nurse took one look at me, alarm went off, i got tossed on a gurney, people came out of the woodwork and i went flying down the hall. next thing i know, im laying on a table, stipped naked, wires tubes and needles stuck everywhere. heard them say heart attack. they gave me a shot of morphine and everything got swirly. i remember getting moved to another room, they shot some kind of dye in me, i got so cold i started shaking voilently. they put these giant hot blankets on me, then the doctor cut open the artery/vein in my groin on the right side and went in, rodded out a blockage (100%) on an artery on the lt front side of the heart. they also inserted a stent. 3mmx30mm. was out of surgery and back in my room by 7 am. i would of never guessed it was a heart attack, i always read about chest pains, radiating pain in the left arm, weakness in the hands, pain in the legs ect. the cardiologist told me, well no, it could be any symptoms. for women, it is usually lower back pain and stomach cramps. cardiologist also said it was very unusual i only had blockage in that one artery, everything else was clear. so now i have a bunch of pills i gotta take, diet restrictions, rehab therapy, cant do any heavy lifting for quite some time, no more cigars (cr*p) and carry a blood pressure monitor and nitroglycerine tablets with me. i never would of guessed i was a candidate for a heart attack because i was active, ate decent, didnt drink, use very little salt ect. go figure. sorry this post is so long, but if it helps any of you guys, that would be great. i for one dont ever want to go thru this again, and hope none of you guys ever have to either. thank you for all your support and prayers, glenn

Thanks for this post Glennster.

Thanks glennster, I'm just a youngun but I'm supposed to be taking the fish oil and watching my diet. If I take that advice now it might tack on a few extra years. Hope your recovery is swift.

hope all is well ,I missed your post before,glad I caught it this morning,we wish you a speedy recovery

Thanks, Glen, and our Prayers and Best Wishes for a continued great recovery!!

Two things jump out from what little I know about heart attacks:

1) Tobacco - yup, that causes blood vessels to clog up

2) Aspirin - it"s a pretty good blood thinner, taking a couple probably helped you a lot

I"ve also heard that once you"re pretty sure you"re having one you have about 90 minutes to get the blood flowing or there"s permanent damage - so err on the side of caution and get to the hospital!

Wow! Your right I wouldnt have thought that if I were you. Glad it turned out ok. I will remember this in 15 years when I am 55.

Glenn, What you said sounded all to familiar to me. In May '12 one month after my 44th B-Day I had a heart attack. Virtully no pain...At most my chest felt like I had a pair of sweatpants pulled up real hi. Nothing in my arms for pain either. I was just blacking out constantly. When I blacked out the last time I fell on my Great Grandfathers cane and shattered it. Fortunately I didn't get punctured by the cane. My neck hurt like hell but I thought it was because of the fall. Felt like I had Godzilla squeezing the trapezius muscles on both sides of my neck. Got to the hospital and like you felt like I was a pin cushion. Had 2 injections of liquid draino or whatever it is called. LOL Plus had a dozen chewable aspirin before I was transfered. When they did my stent they found that was the only blockage and that the rest of my vessels were clean. The Right Coronary Artery was still 95% blocked after all the other meds had been shot in me. My blood pressure is alway in the normal area, cholesteral is normal in both the good and bad variety. I do have diabetes and crohns disease as contributing factors so it was not a surprise just much earlier than expected. Health doesn't pick an age to kick your butt so everyone be careful.

Thanks for taking the time Glen. I appreciate it as I'm sure most here do.

Gatorade? I loved it so much drank a case a day for a couple of years, then came down with a real good case of Type 2 Diabetes. Not just from that, but that didn't help. A year or two ago, I quit taking the medication they had me on because they say good sugar levels are between 70 and 110. When they discovered my diabetes, I was urinating about every hour, day and night, and it smelled like sugar. Couldn't get enough water, mouth was always dry. Eyes got so swollen that someone standing a few feet from me were blurry. Eyes do swell with diabetes, naturally distort vision. My blood sugar was at 525. They gave me a shot of insulin, which with long term use causes damage too, but within an hour my vision was a whole lot better, and when they gave me another shot a month later, it cleared up my vision totally. And the $1,000 pair of glasses not covered by insurance at all, became useless. When glasses correct your nearly legal blindness, and then your vision comes back completely, they are useless. By the time I picked them up at Pearl Vision, my vision had returned to the point I couldn't see out of them the first time I tried them on. Of course, Pearl Vision said they needed a note from my doctor that my vision had changed, and I reminded them that it was them that tested my eyes and came up with the prescription, not my MD. They stuck by their guns and said needed a note from my MD, but since he wasn't involved, they never got a note, and I still have a $1,000 pair of glasses that have never been used in the two years I've had them. Anyway, my doctor put me on medication to correct my blood sugar, and when I was getting up in the morning, it was high like 130, 125? And after working all day, it would drop to 75, 70? I found that eating things like peanuts, tomatoes, fruit lowered my blood sugar, and it got to the point that I was getting up in the morning when the high was 77, so I quit taking the lowering medication, figuring if it was 77 when I took the pill, someone would find me lying on the ground somewhere with a level lowered to the 50's or 40's which is just as bad. Anyway, I could stand to lose a lot of weight, but I quit smoking about 3 or 4 years ago, cold turkey after I thought I was having a heart attack two nights in a row, and haven't touched one since.

Yep, sounds like you are in better shape than me, which gives me a warning, and thanks for dispelling the very things that I thought were indicators of a heart attack. Everything you mentioned were the things I was looking for, and now they may not even matter.

Most important thing Glen, is that you caught it in time, and still have plenty of time to manage it. I have time to manage, you have time to manage, we would both be fools if we didn't try to manage avoiding a great big wreck down the road that we both know is manageable.

Thanks again Glen, and a much Happier New Year with countless happier new years still to come.

Mark

i had one at 54'just a real bad burning sensation in the middle of my chest' blocked 99% couldnt believe it.
RICK

Thanks for the update and details on what happened. There's nothing more realistic than getting a rundown from the "horse's mouth". You said you took some asprin. I wonder if that helped you out some. I'm your size and weight, am active and have never smoked so I've never given a heart attack a thought. Maybe I should be more vigilant. Jim

The aspirin helps. It dilates the arteries so the blood flows easier. If you think you're having a heart attack or some artery blockage, a couple of aspirin dissolved under the tongue will help. Then get to the ER and tell them you are having chest pains, even if they are just teeny tiny pains. Chest pains get quicker results in the ER. Get regular aspirin and not coated. The coated ones won't dissolve under your tongue.

Glennster, I'm glad you are back.