Interesting that I found this thread still here.
Just an update on me and where I have been.
In May 2009 I had a heart attack while on vacation and at my parents house in Florida.
I wasn't feeling well that afternoon, I was a little out of breath and had severe heartburn and some minor back pain starting at around noon that day. Picked up some antacid and thought it was helping.
I felt extremely warm but being in Florida I figured it was just the humidity.
That evening my heartburn and back pain was getting worse, very bad and still felt hot and crampy. I felt a little nauseous and really out of breath from just walking to the bathroom. It was an unusual feeling, I felt like... doom. Not sure why but I knew something was wrong.
If I tried to lay back in bed flat my back pain would be rather severe, no chest pain, no jaw pain. But I did remember feeling like my left arm was swelling. I removed my watch.
Still could not sleep. Sat up and logged into an online MD website. I entered the symptoms, the website replied back with:
CALL 911 IMMEDIATELY
I said to myself, I must have done something wrong and clicked Start over.
I entered the symptoms again, pain in back, arm, heart burn etc.
Same results
CALL 911
So I said maybe I should take an aspirin just in case. Sue handed me a 325mg which I swallowed (not knowing I was supposed to chew it and hold it under my tongue)
I went to another website and started entering the symptoms again... Now feeling really awful I took another swig of Malox now feeling like I am going to puke, I was cold sweats nauseous, and went again to the bathroom. I then washed my face and tried to cool myself off with a damp facecloth then was hit with severe pain that brought me to my knees! I gasped to Sue, Call 911 NOW
The Fire Department and Rescue showed up in like 3 minutes, their station was only a block away from my Parents house.
The put the probes on me and in 30 seconds told me I was having a heart attack and needed to take me to the hospital right away.
They put me on Oxygen, gave me Nitro and started an IV.
I arrived at the hospital, they had just gone though a new review of heart procedures so did everything like clockwork. The cardiologist was there in 10 minutes and what seemed like only 20 minutes from when Sue called 911 I was getting prepped for the cath lab.
I had a full and a partial blockage in my Right Coronary Artery and a 70% block in the same bundle.
Here are the screen shots from the cath lab as they were clearing my blockage.
Before
After
I just wanted to post this to let you know that symptoms are not always textbook. Sometimes you need to as the hospital says be safe not sorry and leave the diagnostics up to the experts.
I ended up having to go back to the hospital again for another 2 stents, now with a total of 4. Going back to my exercising but need to do it very gradually.
See you guys around
John
