Heart attack

[celia54]

Recently, I woke up with chest pains in the middle of the night.I have had no heart problems in the past so we did not think it was a heart attack. The pain kept getting worse som my husband called the ambulance and they rushed me to the hospital. They did all kinds of tests and determined that I did have a heart attack. My arteries were clear so they said the arteries had spasemd and cut off the blood supply to the heart. I have some damage to the lower part of my heart as a result.
My question is?? What could cause this type of heart attack. The Dr never really explained clearly what caused it. I am only 54 years old and have never smoked . I do not drink large amounts of achohol.I am not over weight. I excercise and keep active for my age . I am very confused as I thought I was doing everything right. Do you have any answers for me?

[kenkeith]

The condition can be variant angina or ideapathic coronary spasm.  The underlying cause could be an electrolyte, chemical imbalance causing a rhythm problem.  More likely it is ideopathic (cause unknown).  The spasm constricted the artery and the lack of blood/oxygen effected the heart cells and induced angina (chest pain).

The probability is very high in your favor that heart cells remain viable and function sufficiently normal with restoration of a blood/oxygen supply to lower portion of the heart.  

You probably had a complete blood test that showed markers for a heart attack,  EKG and did you have an echocardiogram?  A stress test with an injection of a dye substance for perfusion through the lower portion of the heart can help determine degree of damage if any and some heart muscle viability and not necrosis.

Several years ago I had a silent heart attack and was in ER for 3-4 days with consgested heart failure.  The RCA was stented providing more blood to the deficit area and wall motion returned to normal with medication as well as a reduction of heart size and normal contractions.