What Happens when Women have Heart Attacks By Jarett C. Bies, Avera Health
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t might start with fluttering vision, or an overwhelming wave of tiredness, one so big and sudden that you just feel like lying down, right there at the checkout counter in the grocery store. Heart attacks don’t happen to women like something in a movie – in fact, many times women can have cardiac arrest without chest pain. The underlying cause – undetected cardiovascular disease – brings with it subtle hints when it reveals as an emergency.
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“Women can have no signs at all and still have heart disease,” says Brooks. “As women, we tend to focus on other conditions more readily, especially women 20-40 years old. Breast cancer is more commonly worried about than cardiovascular disease, even though heart disease kills more people than many cancers combined.” YOU HAVE TO LOOK TO FIND IT There is controversial evidence that certain hormones protect women from heart disease.
“Women can have heart attacks and feel shortness of breath or pain in their neck, jaw, back or shoulders instead of the chest,” says cardiologist Sherrie Brooks, DO, FACC, Avera Heart Hospital. “They might have a general feeling that something’s not ‘right’ or feel dizzy. They might start sweating without exertion.”
“There’s disagreement about whether or not hormone therapy protects the heart,” Brooks says. “Clinical trials, including the Women’s Health Initiative and the Heart and Estrogen/Progestin Replacement Study do not support the cardioprotective effects theory.”
Heart attack signs differ between genders, but one thing does not differ, and that’s the fact heart disease remains the No. 1 cause of death, worldwide, for both men and women.
Researchers have conducted fewer clinical trials involving women and heart disease. The condition is often diagnosed later in women. “In some cases, it’s not diagnosed at all,”
SiouxFallsWoman.net | February/March 2021
