Originally Posted by
JaxSon
First off, thanks for the kind words and encouragement. Means a lot to me.
Back on subject on what a heart attack feels like. My "episode" began in the middle of the night. It woke me up; feeling a pain/spasm that ran all the way across the top of my chest...about armpit high. I wasn't feeling light headed or anything. Got up out of bed, walked around the house for a bit and it went away so I went back to bed. Around 6:30 AM it woke me up again. Again, I wasn't really in pain or anything but I knew something was wrong so I called 911 and they came and got me. Around noontime that same day, they went in with the idea of inserting a stint and send me on my way. But the doc looked at it and said, "I can't fix this. We'll need to do surgery." The next morning, they did the quadruple bypass. The pain and suffering from that major surgery was absolute hell and wouldn't want to wish that on anybody. But I healed up fairly quickly and doing great.
My wife passed away in Sept, 2012. Six years prior, she had a stint put in and she recovered really quickly. In January of 2012, she got the flu real bad and since it was the weekend and she had a history of heart problems, we went into the ER. The ER doc made us feel stupid for bringing her into the ER even after I explained about her heart history. On Wednesday night, Sept 5th she got violently sick and threw up her meal. I found out later that that is a symptom of a heart attack in women. She seemed to get better tho and was taking fluids and eating fine until Friday afternoon at 1PM. She got up to go to the bathroom and collapsed. I tried CPR but she went too fast. I called 911 but she was flat lining when they hooked her up to the machine. Justice of the Peace and the funeral home people showed up and everybody was gone by 4:30. I just sat there alone on the front porch with our dogs and bawled my eyes out.
So yes, symptoms are often quite different in women than in men. Don't take chances. Call 911 ASAP!.