This is an occasional series describing how physical emergencies might feel.
It was February, and Eugene Carter had just finished his regular gym workout–4 miles on the treadmill; weight lifting and chin-ups–and was about to put on his coat when the sensation hit: “It was like the foot of an elephant was stepping on my chest.”
Carter, 77, lay down on a nearby bench and asked his wife, Shirley, to get his personal trainer. “The pain really blindsided me. … [It was a feeling of] tightness, like I had metal bands around my chest and someone was tightening the screws.”
The ordained Methodist pastor, who lives in Elgin, didn’t want an ambulance called. “I was in denial. I’d feel so embarrassed if it was just heartburn or something silly,” he said. But after a few minutes more of the pain, he relented.
An electrocardiogram upon arrival at the hospital showed he was having a heart attack, a blockage of blood flow to heart that causes the muscle to die.
During a heart attack, male patients frequently report a feeling of severe pressure, burning or pain in the middle of the chest that doesn’t subside after 10 to 15 minutes, according to Gary Schaer, a cardiologist at Rush University Medical Center, where Carter subsequently enrolled in a study involving stem cells to restore damaged heart muscle.
The pain may radiate down the inside of the left arm or into the left shoulder, the neck or jaw. Feeling short of breath, clammy or sweaty and nauseated are common, as is a sense of “impending doom,” Schaer said.
“Who knows–maybe there’s some sort of mind-body connection there. It’s not rare to have people in the throes of a heart attack feel frightened and like they’re going to die.”
In his female patients, Schaer hears fewer “classical” and dramatic complaints, which is why heart attacks are more often missed or misdiagnosed in women–more like “I’m just not feeling quite right.” They also may complain of nausea and breathlessness and discomfort in the upper abdomen.
“The thing to emphasize,” Schaer said, “is if you’re a risk-prone person and you have some variation of these symptoms, you need to take it seriously.”
If you think you’re having a heart attack, call 911–don’t drive–and chew and swallow an aspirin as long as you’re not allergic.
Risk factors include family history (a close male relative, such as a parent or sibling, with heart disease before age 55; female relatives before age 65); diabetes; smoking; high blood pressure; gender and age (men tend to get heart disease in their mid-40s; women in their mid-50s) and high cholesterol.
Carter said his mother had a heart attack at 57, “so I wasn’t totally unprepared, but I had no other symptoms.” At 5 feet 9 inches and 140 pounds, he said he has led a healthy lifestyle. Just five days before his heart attack, he got a clean bill of health from his primary-care doctor. And until eight years ago, he regularly hiked 13,000-foot Colorado mountains during family vacations.
Doctors removed the clot that blocked blood flow to Carter’s heart and inserted stents to widen other blocked vessels. He now takes daily medication and is participating in a cardiac-rehabilitation program.
Just recently, on a trip to Mexico, he climbed Mayan ruins well over 100 feet high. “That was an accomplishment; I didn’t have any symptoms.”
