Is it possible to prevent or avoid heart attack, after you notice the symptoms of it?
Asked by
Sneki95 (
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April 26th, 2017
I read that you can notice certain symptoms of an incoming heart attack. Those symptoms can come days or even weeks before the attack itself.
So, you can basically “predict” an attack, in a way.
If you can “predict” it, is there a way to avoid it then?
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You could try taking 1 baby aspirin per day (or at the onslaught of heart attack symptoms) if you’re not already taking a blood thinner.
Anyone experiencing the early symptoms of a heart attack should go immediately to a doctor. ⅓ of all heart attack victims die.
Looking on the bright side, how many other ways are there to die so quickly and avoid prolonged suffering?? NEVER look a gift horse in the mouth!
It depends on the cause of the potential heart attack.
If it is because of a blockage, a cardiologist can put in a pre-emptive stent or do a proactive by-pass.
No way to predict. If you are having angina, you go to the emergency room.
Period. End of discussion.
@Rarebear The emergency room??? That avenue is pretty darn expensive…
@Rarebear, I know some of the signs of heart attack and stroke, but is there a reliable, accurate source that sets out what one might feel if one were having a heart attack (or stroke)?
I ask because I recall my dad saying he felt like he had indigestion. But I was talking to a woman recently who suffered a heart attack and she said she didn’t feel any pain, she just felt ‘unwell’. These are such vague and easily dismissable symptoms. I can well imagine people feeling ‘unwell’ and not visiting a doctor. In her case it was her daughter who insisted she go because she looked so unwell. I’d say especially in the US, where health costs are so high, people are quite likely to be like @kritiper and to resist seeking medical attention.
@Earthbound_Misfit I’ve read that men and women often experience pre-heart attack symptoms differently but I don’t know what the exact differences are. I imagine @Rarebear could help.
Exactly @janbb. I wonder if there is a resource that actually offers reliable guidance we could look at. I see things like ‘if you experience symptoms’ but what are the symptoms for men or women?
I’ve also read that taking an aspirin right away can help but again, maybe @Rarebear can help.
The American Heart Association is a reliable source for information.
Emergency room. They are the only ones to properly take care of an acute cardiac issue.
It is possible to have “a heart attack” and not know it. My father apparently suffered his first at around the age of 50, but passed it off as “a bad weekend”, when he came home from work one Friday night feeling awful, and spent most of the weekend in bed. (Which was highly unusual for him.)
Some time later he had an accident at work where he lost his balance in stepping down from a height of a few feet, fell and injured himself. He was taken to the hospital for the injuries from the accident and as part of the ER treatment – and apparently because of the way he said he had felt at the time he lost his balance – he was given an EKG. The attending physician asked him for the name of his cardiologist to follow up with, and was surprised that he had never been examined for cardio problems. Apparently he could tell from the results of the test that the immediate cause of the loss of balance was a “significant” heart attack, but it also indicated that there had been damage from an earlier event, too. Dad had no idea; up to that time he had never had an EKG or an indication of heart problems.
After he started to receive specific cardiac care, the cardiologist was able to deduce from the account my Dad gave him that the earlier “bad weekend” had probably been the initial cardiac event. So “mild” heart attacks can occur and be passed off – but Dad had also been in exceptionally good shape for a man of his age, too, which probably helped, of course.
And in one respect, @Hawaii_Jake may be incorrect: My understanding is that all heart patients die, not just a third of them. But so do Olympic athletes, presidents, kings and poets. You just can’t win. I’m planning to live forever. So far, so good. There’s a first time for everything, right?
Yes. It is possible to have a heart attack without knowing it.
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Didn’t realize this thread was around. I was diagnosed last summer with Heart Failure, despite never having been diagnosed as having heart attack. A cardiologist said I may have had a “silent” attack. In any case, my heart suffered significant damage.
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