How to Survive Heart Attack Alone

You’re really tired, upset and frustrated. Suddenly, you start experiencing severe pain in your chest that starts to drag out into your arm and up in to your jaw. You are only about five km from the hospital nearest to your home.

Unfortunately, you don’t know if you’ll be able to make it that far. You have been trained in CPR, but the guy that taught the course did not tell you how to perform it on yourself.

Since many people are alone when they suffer heart attack without help, the person whose heart is beating improperly and who begins to feel faint, has only about 10 seconds left before losing consciousness.

However, these 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.

Know the danger zones Being aware of these high-risk windows might lead you to tweak your lifestyle and lessen your chance of problems.

A bout of flu

As if extreme exhaustion, achiness, and high fever weren’t bad enough, the flu may quadruple your odds of having a heart attack for up to three days following the. Illness. The virus may trigger an inflammatory response that can damage arteries. Being dehydrated thickens blood, making it prone to clot. A fever can increase your heart rate, forcing the heart to work harder. a few days after.

A big sporting event

Believe it or not, even cheering for your team can break your heart – if you get so. Wrapped up in the game that your emotions spiral out of control. Soccer’s World Cup is serious business in Brazil. When researchers studied four Cups’ worth of data, they found that heart attacks increased during the tournament’s finals and rates were highest when Brazil was playing compared with other teams. If you’re a screaming sports fan, you could ask your doctor about taking a daily baby aspirin. Better yet, try to take things down a notch.

A manic Monday

Sunday-night blues make your heart sad too. A day-by-day breakdown of the incidence of heart attacks reveals that attacks spike on the days when we return to work after a break. Stress over the coming workweek raises levels of adrenaline and cortisol, which may increase blood pressure and clotting. Starting the week on a calmer note with even five to ten minutes of morning yoga or meditation has helped my patients.

Walking at lunch to relieve midday stress is another good idea.

Shoveling snow

The cardiac• stress of cold weather and heavy labour can be extreme. In case studies, researchers have described heart attacks in .

Patients who suffered a clot in a previously laced heart stent during or soon after shoveling snow. (We’ve seen similar heart attack risks in hunters dragging game out of cold fields.)

I tell my patients with heart disease to dress warmly, take frequent breaks, stay hydrated, and, in some cases, just play it safe and leave shoveling to someone else.

The death of a loved one

Researchers who analyzed thousands of U.S. heart attack victims found that those grieving a death were more likely to have an

increased heart attack risk in the week following their loved one’s passing. Swedish research found that the heart attack risk

remains elevated for several years after the death of an adult sibling. If you are suffering from a loss and feel alone or

depressed, seek out counseling and support from your doctor, friends, and family.

Don’t sit home alone and suffer.

A devastating natural disaster

In the three weeks following the 8.9- magnitude earthquake and accompanying tsunami that killed thousands of people in

‘japan in 2011, the rate of heart attacks among survivors increased threefold, compared with the rate during the same

calendar weeks in: past years. It’s important for first responders and health-care providers to be aware of this. [Leadership.ng]