F
flutterbee
Guest
I'm sure you all know by now that this is a subject near and dear to me. However, in my research of the last few months I've learned that very few women understand the signs and symptoms and a lot of women are not taken seriously by their doctors or ER staff. This is especially alarming because heart disease is the number one killer of women.
A woman's risk of heart disease increases dramatically after the age of 55.
Women are more likely to survive a heart attack than men, but men handle bypass surgery better than women.
Stress tests are only accurate 80% of the time with women. They don't know why. Even invasive procedures, such as heart cathertizations (also called angiograms) aren't as accurate for women.
Symptoms of a heart attack are different for women than for men and are rarely like the dramatic episodes we see on tv. I started having symptoms on Friday. I didn't go to the ER until Monday night and only after a lot of urging by friends. In fact, Monday afternoon I took my daughter to the doctor 30 minutes away. I was having a heart attack and didn't know it.
From an Associated Press article, February 1, 2006:
For more information:
http://www.womenheart.org/
http://www.womenheart.org/
http://www.womentowomen.com/heart-health/preventing-heart-disease-the-natural-approach/
I talked to a woman who has a strong family history of heart disease in the women in her family, yet her doctor refused to perform the tests needed when she was having troubling symptoms.
Ladies, know your bodies and demand the tests that you feel are necessary. Learn the symptoms and risk factors.
Off my soap box now.
A woman's risk of heart disease increases dramatically after the age of 55.
Women are more likely to survive a heart attack than men, but men handle bypass surgery better than women.
Stress tests are only accurate 80% of the time with women. They don't know why. Even invasive procedures, such as heart cathertizations (also called angiograms) aren't as accurate for women.
Symptoms of a heart attack are different for women than for men and are rarely like the dramatic episodes we see on tv. I started having symptoms on Friday. I didn't go to the ER until Monday night and only after a lot of urging by friends. In fact, Monday afternoon I took my daughter to the doctor 30 minutes away. I was having a heart attack and didn't know it.
From an Associated Press article, February 1, 2006:
WASHINGTON Conventional tests wont uncover heart disease in as many as 3 million U.S. women because instead of the usual bulky clogs in main arteries, these women have a hard-to-spot buildup in smaller blood vessels, researchers said yesterday.
These are the women who come to the doctor complaining of chest pain or shortness of breath but are sent away not knowing theyre actually at high risk for a heart attack in the next few years.
"The No. 1 message for women is, Pay attention to your symptoms, " said Dr. George Sopko, a heart specialist at the National Institutes of Health, which sponsored the research. "If you dont have visible blockages, that doesnt mean youre not at risk."
Heart disease is the nations leading killer of both men and women. In fact, slightly more women than men die of cardiovascular diseases each year more than 480,000 of them, according to the American Heart Association.
Scientists are struggling to understand some disturbing gender disparities: Women are less likely to receive aggressive treatment for heart disease than men, are less likely to survive heart surgery, and respond differently than men to different risk factors and therapies. They frequently have different symptoms of a heart attack than men do, such as fatigue instead of the classic chest pain radiating down the arm.
Even the test considered best at diagnosing heart disease angiography, which lets doctors watch as blood flows through key arteries is less accurate for women than for men.
Yesterday, reviewing recent research, the NIHs National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute highlighted why and how many women are at risk after a misleadingly "clear" angiogram.
In an ongoing study called WISE, the Womens Ischemia Syndrome Evaluation, researchers have found that about twothirds of women with chest pain pass an angiogram. But about half of them have a condition named "coronary microvascular syndrome," where plaque evenly coats very small arteries instead of forming more-obvious obstructions in larger ones.
Angiograms simply cant see these tiny arteries, Sopko explained.
The narrowed small arteries mean less oxygen flows to the heart, explaining the womens chest pain.
But this microvascular syndrome also seems to signal a dysfunction of the lining of the arterys inner wall, making the blood vessels not dilate the way theyre supposed to in response to stress, said Dr. C. Noel Bairey Merz of Cedars-Sinai Medical in Los Angeles, who oversees the WISE study.
"It appears to be primarily a womans problem, which is probably why weve missed it all these years (that) we didnt bother to study women," Bairey Merz said, noting that men make up just 20 percent of microvascular syndrome patients.
Other, more-complicated tests can detect microvascular syndrome: measuring whether patients arteries dilate properly when theyre injected with certain medications, or performing an MRI scan of the heart.
For more information:
http://www.womenheart.org/
http://www.womenheart.org/
http://www.womentowomen.com/heart-health/preventing-heart-disease-the-natural-approach/
I talked to a woman who has a strong family history of heart disease in the women in her family, yet her doctor refused to perform the tests needed when she was having troubling symptoms.
Ladies, know your bodies and demand the tests that you feel are necessary. Learn the symptoms and risk factors.
Off my soap box now.