Heart attack?

[morningangel59]

Yesterday morning, I was sitting in bed with my husband watching the news, and enjoying a cup of coffee and a cigarette. I started getting a heavy feeling in the middle of my chest, this progressed to a painful squeezing sensation on the left side around my heart. I felt as if I was about to loose all my bodilt functions. I felt as if I was going to pass out, very dizzy, and drenched in a cold sweat.Very short of breath , much difficulty breathing. My hus band put one of his nitro pills under my tongue, and after about 5 minutes,I stated throwing up.But the pain went away.It left me totlly exhausted, and barely able to move, my left arm was very weak. I remained very tired all day, but today,I feel fine as if nothing happened. I am female, 51 years old,average weight,I do smoke.I do not drink .  I  get plenty of exercise. Did I have a heart attack???

[ireneo]

I should clarify my earlier statement: a true heart attack doesn't just go away but the symptoms can ease off and go away.

[ireneo]

Heart attacks can go away as you call it if the spasm or blockage clears. Sometimes the blockage is permanent, the heart tissue can die and then the pain stops. But as alleycat2 said, the damage is done and it's permanent. The point is to find out as soon as possible so the hospital staff can take measures to correct the problem and prevent damage if possible. Not all heart attacks are fatal but they can cause damage that may lead to heart failure years down the road.

[alleycat2]

Yess I walked around with for six months before I found out I had a heart attack.  Damage was done in that six months that will never be repaired.

[zmonster]

My question about this is, how can this be a heart attack?  Do heart attacks "go away" on their own???  I didn't think that was possible.

[cindy707]

First off i agree with both of the above posts very much...secondly and super important is that you should never have taken that nitro pill from your husband because it could cause a world of hurt for you if you had had a heart attack.  Nitro is not meant for the treatment of a heart attack and should never be taken for that without a doctors telling you to do so.  Heart attacks are generally caused by either a plaque build up in the arteries or a clot and this means that the oxygen or blood flow is impeded.  Lets just say for the sake of thought that you were having a heart attack and it was caused by a clot issue..when you take the nitro basically everything in the heart area opens up extremely quickly to rid the heart of angina or pains in the chest area....if there were a clot in the region you could theoretically send it shooting thru your body and could cause devastating effects to you.  There is a reason why we are never to take anyone elses meds and this is one of the points.  I agree with ireneo and alleycat....you need to go to a hospital today whether or not you are still having symtoms so that they can do a simple blood test and run an EKG test on you to see if or if not you had a heart attack the other nite.  Your symtoms definately throw a red flag here.....

[ireneo]

Please go to ER now to be checked. They'll do some blood work to check for enzymes that appear after a heart attack and of course you'll be hooked up to an ECG.  Nothing very threatening but you need to know if you did have a mild heart attack, whether there was any damage done and how prevent another one. Please...

[alleycat2]

You should been at emergency room 24 hours ago.