Hello, I'm new here. About me and some Questions

[Capnmorgan]

Hello, My name is John. I just turned 33 and on 12/03/2009 I had a heart attack. When the paramedics arrived they thought I was having a panic attack and made me walk to the ambulance, shortly after that, they hooked me to ekg machine and gave me nitro, asprins and turned on the lights/siren. After I get to the hospital, they hook up a bunch of wires, hoses, take blood, give shots, etc... the doctor tells me a specialist is on his way and my ekg showed an anomaly and she was waiting on blood work to return but the specialist didn't think it was a heart attack cause of my age. They sent me to get a "picture of my heart" (thats all they told me, it was a machine with two big boxes that rotated around me while laying on a table). Shortly after that the said I needed an emergency angioplasti and explained the procedure and risks to me and my wife. After the procedure, while I was still on the table, the doctor showed me some before and after videos of what he had done, I had a 90% blockage in my right coranary artery, which he placed a stent, and 3 30% blockages that we are currently treating medicaly.

The doctor told me that he has never seen heart disease this advanced in someone as young as me, he compared my heart to that of a 60 year old smoker, he thinks smoking is the main cause of the severity and said quiting alone will be the best treatment. He told me my diet wasn't a big concern, just be smart about what I eat, and gave me a booklet explaining what to eat.

He also told me I'm very lucky because alot of men in my condition don't survive the heart attack, and almost no one comes through with no detectable heart muscle damage as I did(my ekg is normal).

I now have to take about a billion pills a day, lol. Plavix, asprin, coreg, zocor, zoloft, percocet, and ibuprofen. Oh yeah, and rantadine cause I have an ulcer from all the other meds and I have nitro pills that I have to keep with me all the time. I have been hypertensive since I was a teenager and at about the age of 21 my family doc put me on norvasc, I rarely took it and my bp hovered around 160/90-110 for years, my cholesterol was 346 las time I had it checked. I was never overweight until 2007 so I just figured I was fine and the doctors were exagerating.(I know, I'm a moron)

I have had some minor chest pains since and it worries me, nothing at all like the attack, or the pains the few days preceeding. It's a minor pain directly over my heart and last for 1 second, Only happens about once a week. Is that normal? Also, when I'm really relaxed, like when I lay down for bed, I can feel my heart beat, it's not a pain or anything like that but I can feel it beeting, I lay there and count the beats until I fall asleep, This never happened before, I'm thinking it's more of a mental thing. I have made a doctors appointment but I'm nerveous and figured I'd ask here while I wait.

For about 3 days prior to my heart attack I was having what I thought was bad heartburn, then the attack actually started in my sleep and woke me up, I went down stairs and told my wife something was wrong, I'm having bad chest pains, as we got into the car it hit me real hard, I made it back into the house before collapsing from severe chest, left arm, and neck pain. It felt like knives going through my heart, someone beating my left arm with a hammer and my neck was in a bench vise.

I'm happy that I came through this with minimal damage, I have a wife and two children that need me so I'm following all of the docs advice. My wife won't buy anything that doesn't say heart healthy on it and there is no salt to be found,lol. No more smoking. No missed meds. But im physialy disabled so not much exercise.

well, thats my story, I'm sure I forgot a few things and I know my grammer isn't the best.

[ed34]

just eat lots of nuts and then you can evolve :)
Im able to use a small stick now

[RadioAstronomyObserver]

My older brother had his when he was in his 30's.  I had mine at 41 but the symptoms started at 33. Both of us had double bypasses!  At the time, I had another brother drive me to the hospital where I told them I had chest pains (I think, it's been a while) and they told me to wait in the waiting room.  Just over 30 minutes later I was took into the emergency room and checked out.  Once it was known I might be having a heart attack I had thousands of people all over me doing all sorts of things!!  After the surgery I had eleven(?) bottles of pills, many of them I had to take two twice a day.  So, I can relate to much of your story...

  If it helps, After a few months I ended up with five pills and a only a couple of them were twice a day, I.E. much more manageable!!  And as for the diet, It may take a while to get used to but once you are used to it it'll become easy and just as natural as your previous diet.  At least that's what I keep telling my self and eventually I'll start following that diet. ;-)