Has anyone been diagnosed with Brokenheart Syndrome. ?
I am 48 and had no warning signs until one day after working physically very hard all day, I had a pain in my left shoulder and my throat. I didnt think it was anything but a strained muscle and went to my Doctors.....had an ECG and according to that I was having a massive heart attack but the Doctor pointed out that I couldnt possibly be as I was not feeling that ill. I was rushed in to Emergency by ambulance and everything had gone back to normal. The next day they said that I should have and angiogram to see what was going on and was asked if I had received a bad shock on the day of the attack, I said no and then the dye was injected and was told excellent news your arteries are all clear and you have brokenheart syndrome.
Great, I went back to the ward and got my hubby to look it up on the internet, which he did and it says there are no long lasting bad effects and the heart makes a full recovery.
Then, on the Doctors rounds they just seem to push aside what the specialist had diagnosed and said you have a very small thickening on an artery and that is had caused mild damage to the heart, I did not have a complete blockage and it was felt that it was restricted blood flow. On my going home sheet, it said Brokenheart syndrome treat as NSTEMI so I am really confused and have a 6 month wait before a follow-up with the specialist.
They have really confused me and it would seem that most Doctors out there dont seem to know about Brokenheart syndrome and I just dont know what to accept, the first diagnosis or the second, the hospital has really confused me and I am more worried that they may just be getting it wrong as the Doctors dont seem to want to accept Brokenheart Syndrome.
Has anyone on here been diagnosed with Brokenheart Syndrome and what help and advise have you received ?
Hi there, you seem to have had a tough couple of days!
It's not that a lot of doctors don't know what Brokenheart syndrome is--it's that doctors who aren't trained in internal medicine don't know what it is. Most family doctors probably haven't heard of the condition.
Broken heart syndrome or "takatsubo's cardiomyopathy" is theorized to happen when there is a huge rush of adrenaline in the body (often it is brought out by extreme, acute stress) which ends up causing massive stretching of the left ventricle and all of a sudden the heart doesn't pump very well. In many cases, this reverses and isn't a big problem--sometimes, though, patients can go on to requiring a heart transplant. Because you are healthy enough to post on this board, you are obviously NOT in the severe heart impairment as a consequence group.
Because takotsubo's is so rare, when a patient presents with symptoms like you did and biochemical evidence of heart damage (which I'm assuming your family doctor was seeing on your bloodwork) it's better to err on the side of treating as an NSTEMI. If you treat someone for 48 hours as an NSTEMI and the person does NOT have an NSTEMI, there is not a lot of risk.
Do you have risk factors for heart disease? High blood pressure? High cholesterol? Family history of premature heart attacks? Smoking? Diabetes?
Thank you for replying, yes takotsubo was diagnosed to me at the first instance but when my hubby looked it could be called brokenheart syndrome and people seem to know that more so.......I was also told that I had high colest, 6.5 and I could quite understand that as to be honest I have not been eating that great over the last few months, I am a small build and apart from the odd cig. socialising I dont smoke either. I considered myself very healthy and walked atleast 2 hours a day with my dogs, I have 3 teenage sons and this was a bolt out of the sky, a big warning. It is 8 weeks on now, the various tablets I am on has caused some problems and I was told that the betablocker was causing this. My Doctors halved the dose and I really become unwell, then looking at the tablets it said it helped reduce adrenaline which would go along with the diagnosed condition and I went back on the higher dose and feel quite well, just having to try and get my head around it all and as my husband keeps telling me I have got to stop thinking of myself as a patient and get back to normal.
My Doctor is trying to get me in quicker for my follow-up appointment because I think he is confused as well, he has never heard of it either.
Thank you for your support.
Jules.
Last edited by hb-mod; 03-30-2010 at 03:58 AM.
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Whenever people are told they have heart disease, almost everyone has the same answer, "I'm as healthy as a horse. I eat well, I exercise..." etc. etc. The thing that is forgotten is that, while a person who eats healthy and exercises decreases his/her chance of things like heart disease, it doesn't fully negate the risk. There are all sorts of different predispositions to having smaller caliber coronary arteries, and also a higher predisposition to depositing plaque in the arteries...those types of risk factors are NOT modifiable by diet and exercise.
Now, takotsubo's cardiomyopathy can happen in response to a true NSTEMI, but other times when it happens (which is very rarely) it can be from something as simple as extreme fear.
Thank you, I agree, it can also be from a shock and stress, I have been under alot of stress for about a year before this happened, family/husband worries and like most, money worries, I seemed to carry it all on my shoulders and my Hubby just didnt seem to think he needed to take some of the responsibility, he tended to think, he went to work and that was his share, I did everything else, although I also worked !
The more I read up on this condition and heart attacks it does seem that apart from the usual known things for causing it, you are right, some people can also have other reasons for heart decease which would happen even if they did everything to to avoid problems.
Its lovely to talk to you as you know alot about it. Thank you.
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