Ladies, We Need to Talk About Our Heart Health

I recently read an article titled Women are Unnecessarily Suffering and Dying from Heart Disease, Report Says.

It’s so true. Women are dying annually because of doctors frankly not giving a shit about us and our hearts. Since our symptoms aren’t as noticeable as men’s, we’re getting misdiagnosed with anxiety and pulled chest muscles.

We live in a fear based society. If you have a severe headache with a migraine, you’re getting a CT scan to rule out a brain tumor. If you have a marking, most likely from a mole, in the results of a mammogram, you’re getting an ultrasound to rule out breast cancer. Yet, women are being given an EKG and when it comes back normal, they’re being sent home.

The Heart and Stroke Foundation’s report includes that women are five times more likely to have a heart attack than breast cancer. With that being said, why are women being rushed so quickly away from the hospital and not being further investigated? Frankly, it seems like doctors just aren’t caring enough.

I thought I would share a personal example. After four open heart surgeries and eight catheterizations, I worry every time I get bad chest pains mixed with shortness of breath. My cardiologist has always told me to go to the ER to rule anything out. When I go, about 70% of the time, they rush me in for an EKG to
“rule anything out”. Then I’m sitting in the waiting room for hours for a doctor to tell me that they couldn’t find anything wrong.

1.       In my life, I have never had an EKG diagnose something with my heart. It’s always been an echocardiogram.

2.       If I’ve been sitting in the waiting room for at least four hours, the chest pains have probably gone away at this point.

We women need to rally together. We need to raise our voices. We need to become more educated on the symptoms and the tests that can help us. We need to understand the terms “echocardiogram” and “stress test” to help the doctors find more than EKG can.

We need to stop sitting on the sidelines. We need to scream that we want help. We want doctors to be educated. We want more than one third of heart attack research funding. We want to know our risk factors so we can stop it. We need to be taught what our heart attack symptoms are before it’s too late.

We deserve better. We deserve to be treated for our chest pains, shortness of breath and muscle aches properly. We need to work with our doctors to get rid of the stigmas behind women’s heart attacks and being treated unequally vs. men with heart attack. We need to work as a team of strong women to stop women from dying due to heart attacks far too often.

More links on this topic: Women & Heart Disease (Heart & Stroke Foundation) // Women’s unique symptoms (Heart & Stroke Foundation) // How to Donate to Heart & Stroke Foundation