I Just Had A Heart Attack And I Don't Have Health Insurance (Long)

[whiskeytown]

go to a doctor....pay for it out of your own pocket.

If you had a heart attack, they'll be able to tell you - damage to the heart and some protein in the blood will tell them that.

Regarding weed - it will spike your blood pressure and can even occasionally scare me....take my advice and stop smoking and use a vaporizer - that'll help you out a bit better then inhaling smoke, which brings in that whole high blood pressure escalation.

RB

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
This was most likely a panic attack. Do some research on Severe Anxiety Disorder and some of the symptoms. It is best to see a psychiatrist for one or two visits and he will prescribe you some medicene to make it go away. When reading your first paragraph it was right out of a medical book for symptoms of a panic attack. "Thoughts of impending doom." I see this quote all of the time.

[/ QUOTE ]An isolated panic attack, and a drug-induced one at that, is no reason to seek anti-anxiety drugs. Furthermore, ethical psychiatrists only prescribe those drugs as a last resort in an attempt to change behavior while trying to fix the underlying cause.

[/ QUOTE ]

Fair enough, I only read the first paragraph. However, drug induced or not, panic attacks usually don't remain isolated after you have had one from what I have heard (I could be wrong). The mear fact that you have had this feeling and know it can come back can cause another panic attack. I believe you have SAD if panic attacks occur once every other month or so. If you don't have SAD, you can still get panic attacks once a year or so under highly stressful conditions.

[Jgents]

[ QUOTE ]

The pains you are having--is there any place in the general area that are sore to the touch? Cardiac pain is not sore to the touch, but musculoskeletal pain is. Other symptoms of heart attack include pain or discomfort in the jaw, nausea and cold sweats, dizziness, feeling about to lose consciousness (and obviously actually losing consciousness). Men usually have rather marked symptoms with heart attack. Women and diabetics often do not. The only symptom I had with my heart attack was very mild indigestion--a bit of burping and a bit of heartburn after a very greasy meal. It never occurred to me that something serious was going on until a few hours later when I broke into a cold sweat. I called for an ambulance immediately, and it turned out that I had undiagnosed diabetes and very serious heart damage. Recently my stent failed, and the only symptom I had was mild discomfort in both arms, but I was suspicious and went to the ER. A few hours later I had a new stent and went home the next day. BTW pain that comes and goes with varying activity is not likely to be cardiac in origin.

Something is wrong with you, and my money is on the marijuana. Psychotropic drugs can cause very strange sensations. I have something called atypical migraine (essentially migraine without a headache). This results from spasms in the blood vessels of the brain and causes hallucinations like distortions of time and space, sensitivity to light and sound (inability to understand speech and to read), feelings of dissociation of body parts, and visions of people who aren't there--among other delights. The only things to be done about it are to avoid triggering the attacks and to lie down in a quiet, dark place until the blood supply to the brain goes back to normal. (there are some meds that might help either in reducing the number of attacks or in shortening attacks, but they have their drawbacks.) The point of this is that any change to the brain chemistry (such as is achieved with psychoactive drugs) can play some mighty nasty tricks with your perceptions.

[/ QUOTE ]


Hello, Lady. I'm sorry to hear about your health issues but am both happy you are doing good and were willing to share your experience. I greatly appreciate the people who have responded so far; and jut know you guys have force me to rethink the direction of my life and bad habits for healthier and more happier existence,

Lady, I do not feel any soreness whenever I put a finger to my chest, abdomen or soulder or any other affected area. My left breast area around the heart is feeling "bulged." NO swelling or curves or anything, but this area feels a bit "filled" is the only way I can describe it. I know that my heart got quite a workout during the attack, I'm just hoping and praying that there was no pre-existing heart problem and, if not, that there was no damage to begin with in some way during/after the attack.

[Blarg]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Time to get insurance bro. Don't tell them a damn thing before getting it.

And take this as a cue to keep in shape and eat right. Heart attacks do happen, so if you don't want to be worried about this coming back on you, take preventive measures now by being in better health.

The tension in poker and the self-medication it's easy to indulge in after can be a real strain on the system and a deadly lifestyle. You really should stay in shape if you want to make it sustainable and not become a health basket case.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah. I had no idea about this. Thanks for bringing this up. I know of a young lady (in her 20's) who had an actual heart attack and you can tell she's just starting to mentally recover from it. I know it's possible to have one at 26, and I will definitely get health insurance and get myself checked out as soon as possible.

[/ QUOTE ]

My roommate's dad died of a heart attack in his early 30's, and so did someone's dad I used to work with. I've known a few people whose dads have died in their late 30's and early 40's from heart attacks. As I recall, none of them knew they were unhealthy or saw it coming.

So I've definitely been convinced that early heart attacks really can happen.

[Blarg]

Just curious -- any chance that a hiatal hernia could cause any of the described feelings of pressure or fullness around the ribs or mid/upper chest? Maybe one of our knowledgeable med people could field that one?

[yoshi_yoshi]

I only fully read the first paragraph but it sounds like I had a similar experience. I'm 20, skinny, usually exercise, but when it happened, I was in the middle of a very lazy summer when I didn't exercise. I don't drink / smoke.

So for a couple of days in a row during the summer, after dinner, when I went to relax and watch TV, or lie down to sleep, I would notice my whole upper body feeling funny, and that my heart was not beating 'normally'. I would have to stand up and walk around for the feeling to go away. It didn't hurt, but I instinctively knew it was bad. It went on mildly for about three days until the third night at 3am it got really bad. Even when I walked around I was shaking and feeling faint. So I woke up my parents (had never done this before so they weren't annoyed and took me seriously) and they took me to the ER. All the way there my heart rate was really high and I was shaking. I basically had all the things you mentioned in your first paragraph except maybe the impending doom.

They hooked me up to an EKG and surprisingly, the doctor said there was nothing major wrong with me. So they told me just to see my regular doctor. The next day I saw my regular doctor, but he also couldn't tell what was wrong with me, since my tests all came back healthy. Meanwhile, every night I would be experiencing the milder symptoms I described before.

Anyways, this continues for about two weeks, and my doctor still hasn't given me any real help (he had suggested things like not eating full meals, not consuming caffeine). My doctor finally said 'try these pills' and gave me some Prevacid. It worked right away. I took it for about a month, stopped, per his instructions, and haven't had any symptoms since. My doctor seemed puzzled that it worked, since a lot of my symptoms weren't typical of acid-reflux (which Prevacid heals).

I know you said it wasn't a run-of-the-mill acid reflux ordeal, but that one night mine wasn't either. I had the same high heart rate, shivering, and nausea, and for me it would also get a lot worse when I was sitting or lying down. It was weird that it only happened two nights (oops I forgot to mention this happened in isolation one night in the March before the summer, I didn't do anything about it then), every other night it happened was fairly mild and probably a run-of-the-mill acid reflux ordeal. My doctor couldn't really give me an answer on why this was.

Anyways, if this sounds exactly like you, I would recommend going to the doctor of course, but if not, then taking some acid-reflux medication (Prevacid is prescription only, but some others are not) and stop eating full meals. There is a good chance nothing serious is wrong with you. (A high enough chance to stop worrying, but not high enough to not get at least a checkup. It's not that expensive.)

[LittleOldLady]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

The pains you are having--is there any place in the general area that are sore to the touch? Cardiac pain is not sore to the touch, but musculoskeletal pain is. Other symptoms of heart attack include pain or discomfort in the jaw, nausea and cold sweats, dizziness, feeling about to lose consciousness (and obviously actually losing consciousness). Men usually have rather marked symptoms with heart attack. Women and diabetics often do not. The only symptom I had with my heart attack was very mild indigestion--a bit of burping and a bit of heartburn after a very greasy meal. It never occurred to me that something serious was going on until a few hours later when I broke into a cold sweat. I called for an ambulance immediately, and it turned out that I had undiagnosed diabetes and very serious heart damage. Recently my stent failed, and the only symptom I had was mild discomfort in both arms, but I was suspicious and went to the ER. A few hours later I had a new stent and went home the next day. BTW pain that comes and goes with varying activity is not likely to be cardiac in origin.

Something is wrong with you, and my money is on the marijuana. Psychotropic drugs can cause very strange sensations. I have something called atypical migraine (essentially migraine without a headache). This results from spasms in the blood vessels of the brain and causes hallucinations like distortions of time and space, sensitivity to light and sound (inability to understand speech and to read), feelings of dissociation of body parts, and visions of people who aren't there--among other delights. The only things to be done about it are to avoid triggering the attacks and to lie down in a quiet, dark place until the blood supply to the brain goes back to normal. (there are some meds that might help either in reducing the number of attacks or in shortening attacks, but they have their drawbacks.) The point of this is that any change to the brain chemistry (such as is achieved with psychoactive drugs) can play some mighty nasty tricks with your perceptions.

[/ QUOTE ]


Hello, Lady. I'm sorry to hear about your health issues but am both happy you are doing good and were willing to share your experience. I greatly appreciate the people who have responded so far; and jut know you guys have force me to rethink the direction of my life and bad habits for healthier and more happier existence,

Lady, I do not feel any soreness whenever I put a finger to my chest, abdomen or soulder or any other affected area. My left breast area around the heart is feeling "bulged." NO swelling or curves or anything, but this area feels a bit "filled" is the only way I can describe it. I know that my heart got quite a workout during the attack, I'm just hoping and praying that there was no pre-existing heart problem and, if not, that there was no damage to begin with in some way during/after the attack.

[/ QUOTE ]

Tomorrow call BlueCrossBlueShield and get yourself a policy. For under $100/month (exact cost depends on where you are located and what coverage you select), you can get something that will take care of major medical needs (but not every routine cost). I looked into health insurance for someone your age not long ago, and BlueCrossBlueShield had as good a deal as any. As soon as you are covered, get yourself checked out and see what's what. It's not a good idea to make yourself ill from sheer worry.