A Health Scare + Update – Letter #3

I haven’t written a letter from the heart since January 1st. And that’s because, on January 11th, I had what I thought was a heart attack; and since this month is American Heart Month, I thought I would share what happened.

In the days leading up to the 11th, I hadn’t been feeling great. But I’m almost 50, so I really just thought it was me getting older, being perimenopausal, and also some muscle pain. We also had a very heavy snow on the 8th, and I had been outside dealing with that. So, by Saturday, it made sense that’s why I was feeling worse.

The morning of the 11th I woke up feeling pretty drained, my left shoulder was hurting up into my neck, and I just didn’t feel great but I got on with the work I had to do. After lunch I still didn’t feel great so I sat down at my computer to relax but started to feel worse. I still didn’t think too much of it until I started feeling like my chest was being squeezed, almost like a corset being tightened up or something. 

Then the pain that had been in my shoulder started radiating down my left arm like a numbness, heat exploded into my head, and my heart was pounding out of my chest. So I got up to check my blood pressure and it was 157/100 with a pulse of 153. 

Now, my blood pressure is normally around 115/65 so this was really off for me. I told my daughter that still lives at home that I might need to call 911, and then she called my other daughter and we talked it through. During this time my BP would calm down and then go back up and I was also feeling very nauseous so I decided to be safe rather than sorry and call 911.

When they got me in the ambulance they said I wasn’t in an active heart attack, but they gave me a big dose of aspirin and then a few mins later some nitro. When we arrived at the local hospital they barely plugged me up to an EKG and said I was fine. The ER doc said I was just a little tachycardic but it was nothing to be worried about. She thought I was having a panic attack and discharged me. 

When my family saw me they all agreed that I wasn’t fine and drove me almost 2 hours away to a heart hospital, and that doctor said right away things weren’t fine. He didn’t think I was having a heart attack but said something was off with my electrical system. So they hooked me up to an event monitor to wear for 2 weeks. 

They also gave me some electrolytes because I was low in magnesium and sodium. This shocked me a bit because I already take magnesium supplements to help with my muscle pain. Another thing they told me to start taking along with extra magnesium is a good B complex vitamin. 

So, as soon as I got back home, I started taking those things and I added some electrolyte powder to a glass of water to try to make sure they stayed balanced. After about a week of that I started to feel much better. A lot of the things I had been pushing off as getting older or perimenopausal symptoms seem to be due to low B vitamins, magnesium, and sodium.

I saw a cardiologist on the 5th of this month and we discussed the blood pressure log I had kept the last two weeks and also the other episodes I had which lined up with what the heart monitor picked up. Since all the episodes stopped after the 15th, and I started feeling better, he really feels like it was a severe lack of electrolytes that caused the whole thing. I’m hoping he is right! I will go back in March to have a stress test and an Echo just to make sure my heart is doing okay. 

For me to have called 911 and let an ambulance drive me down our curvy, steep, and very icy road that day… I really thought I was having a heart attack. And let me tell you, the way the doctor at our local hospital treated me upset me so bad. Because I have heard other women being told it’s just anxiety or it’s just acid reflux, and to be treated that way is why a lot of women don’t go to the ER when they should. 

Thankfully in my case I wasn’t having a heart attack, but since they didn’t address the electrolyte imbalance at all I very well could have! Because being too low in electrolytes can cause heart attacks or even cardiac arrest. (I will have an article about this soon.)

I wanted to share this with you today because if you ever think you’re having a heart attack please do call 911 and get to the hospital. Hopefully the one you go to will take better care of you, but if they don’t, please don’t let that stop you from getting a second opinion.