Last week I wrote about my experience of mistaking heart attack symptoms for an anxiety attack.
I told the story of my day and the incidents that led to each of eight symptoms along with the excuse I gave for NOT paying attention to my body.
Some of you asked for a summary of them (thanks Barbara Korol Peters). Here they are along with this caveat. These were MY symptoms.
They are common to those women experience and are quite different from men’s symptoms.
It’s not a complete list of all the things a woman’s body could experience with a heart attack but enough to get you thinking.
Here they are:
Did you catch all EIGHT SYMPTOMS?
1. fatigue
2. pain in neck or collarbone
3. Lightheadedness
4. cold/numb fingers and toes
5. shortness of breath
6. heart palpitations
7. feeling dizzy or faint
8. cold sweat
If you google these symptoms, as I did, some say anxiety attack. That’s what I thought was going on with me but it wasn’t.
I had a heart attack the following day, rushed to the ER, had two stents, and left 3 days later wearing a defibrillator vest.
It was scary as hell and pissed me off because the timing was so inconvenient! That was in February.
Now I’m sharing my story so we women can pay better attention to our bodies.
Here’s one of my favorite websites on the womens’ heart health www.womenheart.org