do you know enough about MI symptoms?

[diamondmeadows]

https://allnurses.com/forums/f9/mi-symptom-debate-34376.html?highlight=women+heart+attack+symptom

i'm sure you do, but i wanted to post this anyway. please forgive me if it's my grief speaking.

in the past couple of weeks i've heard a few discussions about heart attack symptoms in women: a friend mentioned her now-disabled, ex-nurse aunt who had "unusual" symptoms, and my A&P instructor (an MD) mentioned it very briefly. i don't think it was said what those symptoms actually were, and i didn't think to do additional research. in my experience, it seems that people believe that chest pain radiating into the left arm spells heart attack. what about the other symptoms that people experience? why does it seem that we laypersons don't hear about them?

i lost a very special and beloved relative this week who was not even 50 years old. for a few days before, she told us she was feeling tired and having stomach pain and nausea, but she didn't seem to think it was anything more than a virus. she called her physician and asked for an appointment, and the person who received her call (nurse, MA, who knows) also seemed to think it wasn't urgent and told her she could see the physician a couple of days later. the same night she called, she left us. just a couple of months ago, she had an operation that i believe was related to a blood clot (i don't know the details).

i'm not blaming the person in the office, and of course i don't blame my relative or our family. i know these things happen. but i thought of the recent case of the lady who passed away in the ER and today i have been wondering just how often these symptoms are overlooked by everyone. so if you have managed to read this far (i apologize for the length; i know i'm practically ranting) i just wanted to maybe make this fresh in some of your minds. i'm not a nurse yet, so i don't know if it will help. i just can't help but consider the possibility that if my relative had connected her symptoms to her circulatory problems, or if the person in the office had made the leap, maybe we would have had more time with her.

[BRANDY LPN]

If you had a pt with sudden CP lasting 3 hours(at the time of hospital visit), radiating to left arm, back and neck, and labs and EKG and chest xray were normal. pt rates pain 7/10, b/p 146/94 p 72-128 on monitor, Sp02 95-97 on 02 via NC, and resp, 24. Pain is not better with rest, nothing makes it better (or worse). Smoker, strong family hx of heart disease, (father died at age 47, mother, mother grandmother hypertension, paternal grandmother died of unknown cardiac disease)

This is my s/s list from Friday nights ER trip, I will let you guys guess then will tell you the dx.

[babynurselsa, RN]

My worst was a lol with back pain. Chronic hx of the pain, hx of compression fx. Took darvocet, percocet, lortab, or whatever for it. Pain worse x2-3 days. Niece brought her in, We did ekg one her , sure enough showed AMI. She died on me before we could even get the enzymes back from lab. These by the way were through the roof

It would have been easy to attribute her pain to her chronic condition. Initially we really thought that was going to be the case, BUT our docs liked to err on the side of caution and we would at least do an ekg.

No we weren't able to save this patient.....maybe if she had some in several days earlier when she actually had the event............

I have learned to make a practice of at least hooking up all patients on a monitor for at least a look see if there could be any chance they could be having the big one.