Let’s all strive for a HEALTHY HEART
(Credit: Photos.com)
Since yesterday was Valentine’s Day (hope you all had a good one!) , you might have already figured out this is not going to be about protecting your heart in the area of LOVE. (For that advice, I hand the reigns over to a relationship expert like Alisa Bowman, and her popular blog, Project Happily Ever After.)
Instead, since February also happens to be the month that celebrates heart HEALTH, I’m here to write about that.
Heart disease is not just a man’s problem – it strikes men and women in equal numbers. In fact, over 400,000 women a year lose their lives to the disease. That’s huge – more than the next three causes of death combined, including all forms of cancer.
It stikes someone about every 34 seconds.
And since women don’t always associate certain signs and symptoms with a heart attack or cardiac event, they’re 15 percent more likely than men to die of a heart attack, according to the American Heart Association (AHA). Unfortunately, they’re also twice as likely to suffer a second heart attack in the first six years following the first.
And that extra protection our hearts get from estrogen? Say goodbye to it after menopause.
Death rates are declining for men, yet rising for women. Why? One reason may be that women are more likely than men to be a). under-or mis-diagnosed or b). undertreated.
And the reasons for that? Here are a few:
For so long, heart disease was thought of as a “man’s” disease.
Symptoms for women can be different than for men.
Women may be dismissed by doctors/hospital personnel and instead told they’re “anxious” or suffering from another so-called condition, like indigestion or the flu.
The American Heart Association lists these warnings of heart attack signs in women:
- Uncomfortable pressure, squeezing, fullness or pain in the center of your chest. It lasts more than a few minutes, or goes away and comes back.
- Pain or discomfort in one or both arms, the back, neck, jaw or stomach.
- Shortness of breath with or without chest discomfort.
- Other signs such as breaking out in a cold sweat, nausea or lightheadedness.
- As with men, women’s most common heart attack symptom is chest pain or discomfort. But women are somewhat more likely than men to experience some of the other common symptoms, particularly shortness of breath, nausea/vomiting and back or jaw pain.
If you have any of these signs, don’t delay! Call 911 immediately – even waiting as little as 5 minutes can have negative consequences – and get to a hospital right away.
And one of the best medicines for preventing heart disease?
Exercise.
Walk, run, skip, stand up, take the stairs instead of the elevator, dance, park your car far from the entrance.
Just…
MOVE.
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It’s always good to have these reminders!
Happy Valentine’s Day to you~
Thank you, Irene. And the very same to you.
Thanks for writing about heart health. Women do tend to forget. Both my parents had heart issues, so I need to be double careful.
It’s easy to forget, since I think the emphasis has been on men’s heart health for so many years.
Can’t exercise. Too busy catching up on my Internet reading. Just kidding. Thanks for the good advice! Off to do some jumping jacks…
Jennifer Margulis recently posted..Women Against Women: How the Media Denigrates Moms
Whenever I read those symptoms, I think I suffer from them nearly every day. They are so ambiguous, you know? Like a stomach ache could be thought of as a heart attack and vice versa. I totally understand how someone could accidentally ignore the signs.
Alisa Bowman recently posted..4 Ways to Rekindle Love
I agree, Alisa. They are symptoms for common woes, too. That might be why so many problems go undetected, you know?
I’ve heard that heart health research hasn’t focused enough on women. Thanks for this info. And yes, I did workout today.
MyKidsEatSquid recently posted..Beef gorgonzola sliders
Always good to be reminded…good info here.
merr recently posted..How a writer got unstuck
I’ve spent far too much time in the cardiac ICU with my mom. So scary.
Roxanne @ Champion of My Heart recently posted..Wordless Wednesday – Retroactive Pennies
Heart disease is rampant in my family, so it scares me. I knew when my mother had a heart attack in 2004 that the extreme pain she said she felt shooting across her back was a heart attack. No chest pain, only back pain.
Living Large recently posted..Sunday Meals at Our Little House
That is scary, LL. And all the more reason to be so aware and hyper-vigilant.
Thank you for reminding all of us about these symptoms. We women just seem to forget about heart problems, which is crazy — and we can’t be reminded frequently enough.
ruth pennebaker recently posted..We Had Faces Then
So many women neglect protecting themselves against heart disease, instead focusing on what they think is the #1 killer, breast cancer. So it’s great that you wrote this post not only reminding women they could be at risk but that the symptoms may not be similar to those men experience.
I had to force myself to read this, because I worry about heart stuff. I have some sort of heart glitch (have had it forever – I guess I was born with it), but I’ve been hearing more about heart disease and heart attacks in women, and it’s scary. And my triglycerides are high. And I need to lose 20 pounds.
Jane Boursaw recently posted..Happy Birthday, John Hughes: The Voice of My So-Called Lost Generation