Prevention of Heart attack by coughing?

[kouskund]

I have read in the internet about prevention of heart attach by the following method! My question to the dear readers is that is it really helpful? Or is it a hoax? Please help. Thanks in advance!

"The "attacked" victims can help themselves by coughing repeatedly and very vigorously. A deep breath should be taken before each cough, and the cough must be deep and prolonged, as when producing sputum from deep inside the chest.

A breath and a cough must be repeated about every two seconds without let-up until help arrives, or until the heart is felt to be beating normally again.

Deep breaths get oxygen into the lungs and coughing movements squeeze the heart and keep the blood circulating. The squeezing pressure on the heart also helps it regain normal rhythm. In this way, heart attack victims can get to a hospital."

[2210485]

Something doesn't need to be endorsed by the AHA or acc to be effective...

Alot of the suggestions they make are based on simplicity.. They tend to focus on simple interventions that do the most amount of good.

These are things that are easy for folks to learn and hard for folks to  wrong.. That doesnt mean that there aren't things that are maybe a bit harder to learn, or complicated to perform or less effective in the world.

Changes in throacic pressure does indeed help. So yes, coughing can be somewhat effective. Doesn't sound like a hoax or a bad thing to try... I wouldnt recommend driving to a hospital in that condition... Aside from that if it doesnt delay the time it takes for you to get care why not?

[ed34]

The best things to do during a heart attack are. Get to professional medical help asap. Relax as much as possible. A heart attack invokes fear and this makes the heart work harder, needing even more oxygen. The more you can relax physically and mentally, the more chance you have. One thing here in the UK is that the paramedics give you a aspirin to thin the blood. This helps prevent the double whammy which is the usual killer. Where plaque breaks free and travels down an artery to block it, a clot usually forms where the plaque broke free, making a second blockage.

[Occupant]

Oh, now I get it. From Wikipedia: "Cough CPR is the subject of a hoax email that began circulating in 1999. It is described as a "resuscitation technique" in which through prolonged coughing and deep breathing every 2 seconds, a person suffering a cardiac dysrhythmia immediately before cardiac arrest can keep conscious until help arrives (or until the person can get to the nearest hospital). Neither the American Heart Association nor the American Red Cross endorses cough CPR during a heart attack." Even if that would work, we are not talking arrhythmia in this case, but rather an arterial blood clot causing a heart attack. Dislodging that through violent motion like coughing is very unlikely, perhaps jumping down a cliff might help :)

[kouskund]

I was talking about "prevention of further deterioration during a heart attack"! Ok.. So, as ed34 says, coughing DOESN'T help. right?

[Occupant]

You start out by mentioning "prevention" but then talk about the "attacked" victim. If coughing could help preventing a heart attack then everybody should be coughing - you never know, but if you already have a heart attack, then I agree with ed34 - no way.

[ed34]

After a procedure of having 5 stents in my left coronary artery I had an episode due the fact the catheter had pierced the artery wall, causing a small bleed. It was sealed with a stent, but caused a rhythm problem to occur in recovery. I remember asking the Cardiac Doctor for a bowl because I felt nauseous and the pain from the incision was unbearable. She looked at me, then the monitor and kept shouting "I want you to cough, and keep coughing". I argued I couldn't because I felt too nauseous but she insisted "Deep coughs NOW". I couldn't cough and passed out. Coughing has the ability to reset heart rhythm but as for helping with a heart attack, I don't think so. During my heart attack I was taking natural deep breaths because you feel short of breath and it didn't help. During a heart attack, you have a totally blocked vessel and no amount of coughing is going to remove that blockage.