March 04--How young is too young to have a heart attack?
According to the American Heart Association, the average age when suffering a first heart attack is 64.5 years for men and 70.3 years for women.
Younger people have heart attacks, too.
Andrea Woie, a 33-year-old Richmond-area woman, had a heart attack at age 32. She shared her story recently at a program on women and heart disease. Out of her gratitude to be alive and well, she said she tells her story to "pay it forward" so that others may learn from her situation.
She didn't have any of the typical risk factors for heart disease, she explained. She never smoked. She wasn't overweight. Her blood pressure and cholesterol were good. She was not diabetic.
So when she developed some unusual symptoms while she and her husband were traveling out of state, they didn't rush to the emergency room. The symptoms included tightness in the chest, shortness of breath and pain in the chest.
"My husband told me to just lie down and rest, and we checked into our room. After about 10 minutes or so it went away. That night when we went out to explore and have dinner [and] I had two more angina attacks in the evening," Woie said, explaining that at the time she did not know the pain episodes were angina attacks.
When they arrived home she called her primary care doctor
"We got back in town on Monday, and I had an appointment on Tuesday. We went in. ... She sent me to get an (electrocardiogram) and chest X-ray. Both tests came back fine and clear, that of a normal healthy patient." Woie said. "She had also scheduled me for a CT scan on Thursday."
On Wednesday, the pain was back, in a different spot -- her back shoulder blades and was so severe it kept her up all night. By morning it had subsided. She went in for the scan, which didn't pick up anything.
"I left feeling better in my mind but my body felt tired. I think I was chalking it up to stress," Woie said.
Friday passed. She had another lesser pain episode. On Saturday the pain came roaring back.
Her husband took her to the emergency department around midnight.
"They ran an (electrocardiogram), took some blood," Woie said. "The ER doctor came in and had a funny look on his face and said to me and my husband 'You are not going to believe this, but your EKG and blood work indicate that you had a heart attack.' "
She was admitted, and later underwent a cardiac catheterization. She recalled the doctor telling her that her left main coronary artery, sometimes called the "widow maker," was 100 percent blocked. Doctors cleared it and put in a stent.
"Now that I am healthy, my desire is to be able to share (my story) with anyone willing to listen," Woie said.
TLsmith@timesdispatch.com
(804) 649-6572
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