Don't normally do this, but...

[Uncle Ron]

Many of the guys and gals on the forum are of a certain age and I know from personal experience that advice or reminder may be useful ... So here's something that someone who loves me emailed me tonight ... And I'm sending it out to you guys ... Cheers, Unc

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Subject: Mayo Clinic on Aspirin - PASS IT ON

Mayo Clinic Aspirin

Dr. Virend Somers, is a Cardiologist from the Mayo Clinic,

who is lead author of the report in the July 29, 2008 issue of

the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Most heart attacks occur in the day, generally

between 6 A.M. and noon. Having one during the night, when

the heart should be most at rest, means

that something unusual happened. Somers and his colleagues

have been working for a decade to show that sleep apnea is

to blame.

1. If you take an aspirin or a baby aspirin once a day,

take it at night.

The reason: Aspirin has a 24-hour "half-life";

therefore, if most heart attacks happen in the

wee hours of the morning, the

Aspirin would be strongest in your system.

2. FYI,

Aspirin lasts a really long time in your medicine chest

for years, (when it gets old, it smells like vinegar).

Please read on.

Something that we can do to help ourselves - nice to know.

Bayer is making crystal aspirin to dissolve instantly on the tongue.

They work much faster than the tablets.

Why keep Aspirin by your bedside? It's about Heart Attacks -

There are other symptoms of a heart attack, besides the

pain on the left arm. One must also be aware of an intense

pain on the chin, as well as nausea and lots of sweating;

however, these symptoms may also occur less frequently.

Note: There may be NO pain in the chest during a heart attack.

The majority of people (about 60%) who had

a heart attack during their sleep did not wake up.

However, if it occurs, the chest pain may wake you up from

your deep sleep.

If that happens, immediately dissolve two aspirins in your mouth

and swallow them with a bit of water.

Afterwards:

- Call 911.

- Phone a neighbor or a family member who lives very close by.

- Say "heart attack!"

- Say that you have taken 2 Aspirins.

- Take a seat on a chair or sofa

near the front door, and wait for their arrival and

...DO NOT LIE DOWN!

A Cardiologist has stated that if each person after

receiving this e-mail, sends it to 10 people, probably one

life could be saved!

I have already shared this information. What about you?

Do forward this message. It may save lives!

[Terry Soloman]

Great post Unc! As a guy who has had two heart attacks and now has six-stents, I can say with confidence this is real life saving information that is absolutely true. Great Post!

[Allen in MT]

Thanks for the reminder Unc. The Bayer Aspirin has done alot of good for the body

[frank c]

I do believe that stuff has kept me going.

[MT-AZ-HP]

THANKS FOR THE INFO UNC, I'LL TAKE MY ASPIRN IN THE EVENING FROM NOW ON.

HARRY

[Hoser John]

been doing it for many years especially since many of my peers have fallen by the wayside. RIP...great info for the uninformed UR-John

[Rimshot]

Good post Ron!

Maybe this post would be a good one for some of you fellows who have had heart problems to share with us fellows who haven't had any problems, the symtoms you experienced.

I hate reading stuff that has been written in little brochures laying around in doctors offices detailing symptoms of a bad ticker. I always felt they were written in a generic form and left out too many tiny details that only you guys would know.

Would much rather hear true experiences that happened to you. Symtoms that either caused you to go to the doctor and discuss it or caused you or someone else to call 911 on your behalf.

Something you say, just by the way you expressed it, might save someone's life.

Rim

[Mike Furness]

Great Post Ron ... Thank you. Mike F

[FlakMagnet]

Thank you Ron, I will definitely pass your post on.

[Uncle Ron]

Good post Ron!

Maybe this post would be a good one for some of you fellows who have had heart problems to share with us fellows who haven't had any problems, the symtoms you experienced.

I hate reading stuff that has been written in little brochures laying around in doctors offices detailing symptoms of a bad ticker. I always felt they were written in a generic form and left out too many tiny details that only you guys would know.

Would much rather hear true experiences that happened to you. Symtoms that either caused you to go to the doctor and discuss it or caused you or someone else to call 911 on your behalf.

Something you say, just by the way you expressed it, might save someone's life.

Rim

From about my mid-40's on, I had tingling in my left hand, or at least part of it, when I would exert myself or find my self under extreme business stress (which was pretty much daily.) In 1998 when I was 52, I happened to have 5 EKG's done for business insurance purposes, and all five came out perfect ... My BP was constant at 120/60 and my heart rate was always about 50 ... Thanks to some major theft by one of our business partners, we lost the business and left Kalifornia for Arizona in 1999 ... I started up a concrete curbing business which required some hard work and I started having extreme pain in my shoulders any time I exerted myself and also my neck was extremely painful ... Finally, I went to a Dr. down in Surprise and he scheduled an MRI for my neck and a cardio stress test just on general principals ... I did the MRI first and then was set to do the stress test about a week later on a Friday ... However, on Thursday, the Dr. phoned me and said I could forget the stress test because my heart was perfect and the problem was degenerating disk disease in my neck ...

Well, I started to cancel the stress test, but then thought about the fact I had never had any major physical exams, despite that fact I was a heavy smoker (30+ years), and was far more than a casual drinker, and my Dad had had 2 bypass surgeries and several heart attacks ...

So, late on Friday afternoon, I started the stress test ... The tech shot me up with some radioactive stuff and put me on a machine where they could view and photograph my heart in action ... That took about 20 minutes ... Then they put me in a room and wired my chest up to a fancy machine next to a tread mill ... They started me walking slowly and after about a minute they started speeding the tread mill up ... Almost immediately the tech who was conducting the stress test started, literally shouting, "Doctor, doctor, STAT!!!" ... The Dr. walked quickly into the room, looked at the monitor screen and told the techs to stop the treadmill and sit me down ... He then got into my face, put a BP cuff on me and started asking me where I hurt, did my chest hurt, did my jaw hurt, etc., ... I told him "No, I'm not hurting anywhere." They pulled the wires off me and told me to get dressed and go into the Dr.'s private office ...

He said he wanted me to go immediately and check myself into the hospital for more testing including an angiogram ... I told him I preferred to do it the next morning, Saturday ... He said, "You may not be with us tomorrow morning!" Anyhow, somehow my mind would not accept that anything was wrong with me and I stubbornly refused ... He got very pissed off at me but finally loaded me up with some pills and told me if I had any chest or jaw pains at all to check myself into the Wickenburg Emergency Clinic ...

Long story short, I went through the angiogram Saturday afternoon ... Turned out the only reason I was alive was that my heart had grown dozens of small veins going around the completely plugged up veins ... I had emergency 4-way bypass surgery ... That was Feb. 20, 2000, which also happened to be the day I smoked my very last cigarette!!! It turned out that I had had quite a few "small" heart attacks over the years which I simply interpreted as "stress" reaction ... They destroyed about 12 - 15% of my heart muscle which did not come back ...

So, I guess the facts are don't smoke, and if you have tingling in your left arm or hand, or pain in your chest, jaw and/or shoulders, to get yourself checked out! Cheers, Unc

[Rimshot]

Wow Ron!

You are one lucky man!

I'm glad you went ahead and decided to do the stress test and i'm sure you are too.

Amazing story!

And thank's for sharing.

Rim

[Hoser John]

I had that nasty stress test once for 2 elbow rebuild ops and WOW what a pain man. Fill ya fulla poison and run your butt off on a inclined treadmill for 5 minutes with them raising and speeding up that stinkn' treadmill every few seconds!!! Next time they'll just hit me up with speed as NOT doing that crappola ever again. I've swam for exercise for almost 12 years,miles/miles, and your heart does NOT speed up like other folks so much MUCH harder to make it reach the peak they're looking for in stress, Doing swimming exercises you've retrained your heart muscles to not speed up that much as it functions much more efficently. John

[~LARGO~]

Hey Cuz,

Thank you so much for providing such timely and important information.

I DO recall the difficult times you and yours went through, however from afar.

Please continue keep on keeping on.

Regards,

Cuz Gary

[LostDutchman]

2 heart attacks, 2 stents, and 2 blockages they can't get stents to.... and I'm only in my mid 50's.

Oh yea, been fightin' cancer too...

Rimshot,

Went to bed one night after drivin' back from Tucson. Was a little after midnight. Felt strange. Different. A bit woozy. My left arm started hurtin', deep inside... felt like it was an ache, felt like it was deep in the bone. Went most of the way down the arm bone but was worse near the shoulder. Chest was aching near the heart but a little below and it felt like it was going through to my back. Thought it might be indigestion. Kinda felt like that except for it going to my back. Chest felt tight... kinda like an ace bandage was wrapped around. None of the pain was real intense... more of an ache. Something seemed different about this. I chewed on a tums... expecting it to relieve the indigestion. After a few minutes the aches got a little worse and the indegistion didn't get any better... no burping. I started thinking that maybe it wasn't what I ate that was causing the discomfort. Now I was thinking that maybe it was a heart attack. I took a regular asprin, chewed and swallowed it. A few minutes later I felt a powerful urge for a bowel movement. Chest tightness and arm bone pain were sitll slowly increasing. Went into the bathroom and durning the bowel movement I went into some fairly intense cold sweats. Also started a couple of dry heaves. At that point I was pretty sure I was haveing a heart attack. When I was finished in the bathroom, I went back to bed, sitting up and woke up my wife. Told her to call an ambulance. Got my first stent an hour later.

The second one was more of a walking heart attack. Unstable Angina they called it. One Friday after work a few months ago, I started feeling the bone ache in my left arm again. Very slight tightness in the chest. I could feel the bone ache in my left jaw too. I knew things were not right again but it was not anywhere near as severe as before. During the weekend it did not improve, so on Monday, I called my cardiologist. He scheduled a few tests and then scheduled the cath lab for an exploratory cath with the likelyhood of another stent. The exploratory and stent were all done through out-patient this time.

[Uncle Ron]

Wow, Dutchman, that's an intense and useful discription of the type of heart problem you had ...Very instructive ... I hope you're doing well now!!! Cheers, Unc

[GlennM]

I agree with Ron.

I very much appreciate the real life candid accounts.

[Rimshot]

Yup! LDutchman's sounds more like typical symtoms detailed in those brochures I was talking about.

So LD, what did the doctor tell you the game plan was for the 2 arteries that are still clogged?

Rim

[LostDutchman]

Rim,

Yea, a lot like the brochures. Those things saved my life. The only thing I want to stress is the pain in the arm and jaw felt different from normal sprains, muscle strains, or bruises. They were deep in the bone and felt like the bone itself was aching. The chest pain was a feeling of compression tightness but not a severe pain, just an uncomfortable pressure feeling. It was a steady feeling, did not change much except to get a little worse over time. It is similar to a bad case of indegestion. The kind with a lot of gas... only no gas being expelled. Also the tightness was extended to the left back... just under the shoulder blade. Also I felt a bit woozy... not normal with gas.

The game plan for the other 2 arteries are the typical Diet, Exercise, and Lifestyle (stress, etc) changes. They can't get to em with stents and arteries are too small to warrent a bypass. If I ever go in for a regular bypass, they will see if they are worth correcting at that time. They have me on very strong concentrated fish oil, 3000 mg of Slo Niacin, plant sterols, a blood thinner for the stent, and 2 baby asprin daily.

Ron,

Yes, I am doing better... thanks!

[El Dorado]

Had my first attack at age 42. I was at work fixing an airplane and my left arm started a bit of discomfort and got a cold sweat at the same time. Called over one of my mechanics and told him I think I am having a heart attack, please take me to the hospital. On the way, I felt a heaviness in my chest and told my buddy I am sure it is the real deal. Did not get any of the heavy bad pains, just discomfort. A very very small artery in the back of my heart was clogged up. They said no stent would fix it and I stayed in the hospital for 3 days then they sent me home. Heart tissue about 1/4" round died. They said it is so small it should not bother me at all. Three weeks later I was humping out a dredge motor and pump of about 80lbs up a steep canyon. Dr said I was nuts, but it was the only way for me to trust my ticker again.......

Fast forward 10 years. I was doing a voluntary Bruce protocol stress test so I could keep my pilots medical rating. At the end of the test I was in the Doc's office and he was going over the results. Told me I was as strong as ever and not to worry about it for another year and he cleared me for my medical. While driving home about 45 minutes later, the pain in my arm started up. Since the Doc just told me all was good, I just continued on home but was a bit worried. When I was pulling into my driveway 10 minutes later, I started feeling extreme pain in my chest and arm..... I knew it was another attack but it felt bad like I was going to die. Called 911 and told them what was going on. Did the aspirin and sat down waiting. Called the future Mrs El Dorado and said she might call a few hospitals and see if I was still alive. A fire truck pulled up right then and the EMT told me a helo was on the way. 3 minutes later it landed in my front yard. By then the pain was almost unbearable in my arm and chest. The flight nurse told me she would hit me with morphine as soon as I was tucked into her bird. That morphine could not come soon enough. Any way, I was in the cath lab less than 45 minutes after it started and got a stent right there and then. As soon as I was somewhat coherent after the stent, they told me I had two choices, open heart surgery or death in the very near future. A triple bypass later I was on the road to recovery. My Doc said due to the speed of getting that stent, then getting the surgery I suffered no permanent damage to the ticker. That was 14 years ago and I still feel fine. OH yeah, the day I had the first attack, was the wake up call to stop smoking.

Modern medicine has saved my life many times and I sure am glad I live in America where the best is available......

[Rimshot]

Wow El D!

Another amazing story for sure. Makes me wonder if the stress test equipment was functioning correctly. But I guess it's good you passed the test before the heart attack.

Do you remember if you were in some weird position when working on the plane when the 1st attack occurred? Like on your back looking up under the dash? Possibly cutting off circulation.

Rim