Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Heart Disease, Heart Attacks?

Good info.

I forget the actual percentage that don’t survive their first heart attack. If I remember correctly it’s over 50 percent. The old saying is correct.
An once of prevention is worth a pound of cure. So take the time to visit the doctor and get a stress test every now and then.
Blocked arteries can be fixed before a heart attack. Hasbeen

Spot on Has, Likely over half of us posting here would have been dead 40 years ago.

That is correct. Used to be SOP but seems to be less so now.


mike r

Check the ankles and lower legs also.

I’m Lucky I’m in the Houston area. I questioned a doctor one time about patients coming from around the world for treatment. She said doctors come from around the world to see what we are doing.
By the way they start with a stethoscope. If they hear anything strange it’s off to ultra sound. Hasbeen

Whew!!
Saw it first hand last night. Six or seven couples got together for drinks. Talking to a friend that has a bad heart. I had watched him a bit & knew he'd only had 2 or 3 Ultra's in 4 hours, water in between. Glad to see him trying to take care of himself.
He dropped his beer. I waited a few seconds & was leaning in to pick it up for him when he spoke in a slow but surprised way that he had dropped his beer, & started leaning forward to pick it up. I leaned back so we wouldn't butt heads. He kept on going, thud, face down on the floor in stillness.
Taken by confusion at first, not the first time I've seen someone fall out of a chair at a party. But then I saw the spasms. Ahh crap! this is serious! As I was jumping up he rolled over & bolted up right, held up his hand & announced he was OK. He then grabbed his chest & shouted, damn that hurt.
Seems his built in defibrillator had done it's job.

So there were no other indicators, genetics, high cholesterol, angina, etc?

I recently joined this club, Not real happy about it but hey I'm alive!

On 1/28 I had a stent put in the LAD Artery and I haven't felt this good in a long time.

Life is good.

Jorge, no other symptoms, signs or indications. I see the doc every 6 months and get complete labs every time. I work out 6 days/week. Other than that occlusion my cardiovascular system is pretty healthy. All the other carotids were normal. I now get ultra sound testing annually, so far no problems but I was/am very lucky.


mike r

Thanks, Mike. I get a complete annual (class III FAA) and labs 2X.year, like you, no symptoms and I'm pretty sure he does the same thing your doctor does.

No thanks

-Jake

Interesting Pat..I never got the scoop on that before.

I had a heart attack when I was 31 years old and 30 pounds lighter. I earned it...hard, fast living. Anyway I walked into the ER, they put me in an exam room where I sat on the counter waiting for the Doc. He came in, asked what was going on and I said " I'm having a heart attack..." He answered with " How long have you been a hypochondriac?" To which I answered " How long have you been an ass hole?"..." Call my Dr. at home right now...he did, I was right, and he was never to be seen again...


I lived....

My wife has suffered from viral cardiomyopathy since late 1991. Flu-like virus caused it.

She has an LVAD now. Left Ventricular Assistance Device. Fancy name for an impellar driven pump. Takes the place of thenleft side of heart. Installed in Sept 2012. Blood hemolysis from a bad INR count ( change in meds) caused blood clot to form in the device, that caused two strokes week of New Years 2014. They were not friendly strokes. Significant scaring (trauma) in right frontal lobe. Many here do not know but We finally had to place her in an assisted living home last June. I cannot give her the care she needs. Nor could I physically handle her anymore. One of us would have ended up hurt or dead. The last 4-5 years have been an indescribable nightmare. I am on my way to her room shortly as I promised I would take her out to eat tonight. There’s a 50/50 chance we’ll have a nice evening.

Sure like the dog thread better.

Stopped reading this thread after this post. Good luck to you all!

Tom, you know I'm usually a fairly succinct poster. I share this story so that somebody might not be as ignorant as me about heart issues. I will add...doctors don't know [bleep] about your heart unless it's too late or they get in it.

I've been debating if the fire is the proper audience for relating my personal experience with my "guardian angel." I decided there are some on here who will appreciate my story, and others, who may consider the objective evidence I will present, and will maybe think about their own situation in life here on earth.

It was 2011. I had just finished a company meeting in Southern California, and had dined at an Italian Ristoranti with my business associates. I remember eating a dish with spicy tomato sauce. I had been using Rolaids for a couple of years to treat acid reflux, and the next morning, upon awakening around 5:00 am, to get to the airport to catch my flight back home to Oklahoma City, I took a couple of Rolaids, for what I thought was acid indigestion from the spicy meal the night before. The only thing I noticed different, than any other acid reflux incident, is that the Rolaids were ineffective this time.

I took two more Rolaids on the way to the airport and got on my Southwest flight to Phoenix, where I would connect with my flight home to Oklahoma City.

When I got off the plane in Phoenix I had to travel quite a ways to another terminal. It was then that I started to figure out that something was seriously wrong with me. I got so tired and lethargic, walking along, pulling my luggage and carrying my laptop case, that I just stopped walking on the conveyor and stood to the side to let others pass. As people would walk past me and look at me, I could tell from the look on their face that I must look really bad. I know I felt bad. It was at that time that I started seriously thinking about going to a hospital emergency room.

I finally made it to my gate, and the pain that had started within my chest, had now moved to my back, seemingly under my right side wing bone. I made it onto the plane, short of breath and worried that I may not make it home. I felt guilty that something may happen during the flight and that the plane may have to be diverted, and all the passengers would be inconvenienced. Nevertheless I pushed on, and took a chance I could make it home.

I was one of the first to board the plane and decided to sit in the emergency row where I would have the most leg room. I was seated against the bulkhead with no seat in front of me. I placed my roller bag in the overhead and my computer bag in the open space in front of me. I placed my Blackberry phone in the middle seat back pocket. There was a man sitting on the aisle seat who was returning from his daughter's Oklahoma State University softball game, and the middle seat was empty.

I leaned forward, attempting to massage my heart by filling my lungs with air and compressing my chest. I had read of this technique in an article a business associate had linked in an email a few days earlier. I continued my chest compressions in an attempt to relieve the pain in my back, but the pain persisted and I felt a general malaise across my entire body.

A woman sat down in the middle seat next to me. She appeared to be about 50 years old, blond hair, slim and somewhat attractive. As the plane bagan to roll for takeoff, we chatted a bit. It turned out she told me that she and her husband owned a crane company in Pennsylvania. I told her I was with a pipeline company and worked quite a bit in Pennsylvania and asked for her business card. She told me she would give it to me when we landed in Oklahoma City. I again leaned forward and continued my chest compressions as we climbed out of Phoenix.

The lady asked me if I was OK. I told her I did not feel well, and asked her to call my wife if something happened to me. I showed her where my phone was in the seat back pocket in front of her. She then asked if she could pray for me. I told her I would appreciate it.

She placed her hand on my back as I leaned forward, and began to silently pray. Immediately, I could feel the heat of her hand on my upper back. It felt like the heat of a hot water bottle. Amazingly I could feel all the pain in my back seem to drain out through her warm hand. Soon I felt 100% better. She removed her hand, and I assume had completed her prayer.

Well I made it to Oklahoma City, and when we had landed and taxied up to the gate, the little "ding" sounded and all the passengers stood up, crowding the isle. I reached down to pick up my computer bag, and then remembered I needed to get the business card from the kind lady that had helped me during the flight. To my surprise, she was gone. She was no where to be seen. The isle was still packed with passengers, making it impossible that she had left the plane from our center over-the-wing seats. The man with the softball player daughter was still seated waiting for the isle to clear. I looked up and down the isle, looking for the blond woman, but she was nowhere to be seen. It then hit me . . . she was not from Pennsylvania . . . she was not married, and did not own a crane company. She was my guardian angel.

Well I ended up in the emergency room that night, and they hooked up an EKG. The on-duty physician came in five minutes later, and told me I was having a heart attack. The next morning my cardiologist, Dr. Arif Shakir, arrived early and put a stent in my heart. He saved my life, and for that I will be forever grateful. He added two more stents in 2014, after I began suffering the same symptoms I had three years earlier. Since then I have not had any more attacks.

Nevertheless, I am now a strong believer in "guardian angels." Who knows how much longer I have to live. I am ready. My wife will be taken care of financially, and we are both prepared spiritually.

I wish would have, but it did goose me into thinking about trying to live a little bit better. I need a little more excercise and I’m 10 lbs too heavy.

I am in great shape and have remained active all my life. At age 68 I noticed i didn't have the usual energy and then when really exerting could feel a mild tightness right around my choler bone on the left side. I went to the Doc and he checked me out and did a physical with an EKG and said good to go. I told him I needed a stress test and he scheduled one and just as I suspected I flunked. It turned out I had 2 blockages and when they tried to stent them one location was at a junction point so they decided my best option would be for an open heart bypass procedure. Up to that point the only hospitalization procedures I had done were all sports related and done by orthopedic surgeons. After the open heart operation which really wasn't that bad I feel 100% again. I am 70, hunt and fish every day when there is a season and look forward to many more years of it.

My problem is i have one hot wire to many.

Sometimes when the dirt blows around and i get to coughing once a year or so i get an attack called SVT.

Sometimes it lasts about 2 hours and afterward i feel like i have run a long race.

They have done tests of all kinds and taken pictures but no heart damage is to be found.

Best i can describe it is having a pump with the same pressure on both sides equal.

Have had it about 4 times in the last 20 years and have had no pain at all.