We here at 3BY have been working on a series of ‘personal SHTF’ articles: Pieces about how to be prepared for the emergencies that come one family or person at a time. These preps are not usually extensive or expensive, but you’re way more likely to need them than you are to need an EMP-proof bugout vehicle. (Not that I’ve got anything against those good ole trucks, mind!) Are you prepared to handle the health emergency that is the leading cause of death in the U.S.? Heart attack.
Please note: I’m not a physician, and I’m not making recommendations. I’m sharing information I’ve found from what I consider to be reputable sources; you make your own decisions.
What’s a heart attack, really?
I’m hoping this will be old news for many of you, but just to get everybody on the same page, let’s do a brief overview. Over time (faster with bad genetics, diet, or sedentary habits), buildups of fats and other physiological gunk (<– sorry for the technical terminology there) accumulate in our arteries. Sometimes these plaques as they’re called get dislodged. This triggers a blood clot to form inside the artery. Whatever tissue was supposed to get blood from that artery gets starved of oxygen.
A heart attack is when this inside-the-artery clotting happens in one of the arteries that serves the muscle of your heart wall. The heart starts to hurt and fail, just like leg muscles do if you use them too hard without enough blood flow. The heart beat gets weak or stops, the rest of the body is now oxygen-starved too, and the person is having a heart attack.
When the block happens in an artery that’s supposed to feed the heart muscle, a heart attack occurs.
How do you know if one is happening?
Most everybody knows about the pain in the chest and/or left arm signaling a heart attack. What I wish more people knew is that not all heart attacks look that way. Especially in women (nobody knows why so far as I can find), the symptoms may be different. Here’s a list that covers a greater percentage of heart attacks: (2)
*Chest discomfort: pain, pressure, or squeezing sensation. This is from the lactic acid from the oxygen-starved heart, much like the leg pain felt when you’ve been running hard.
*Discomfort in upper body. Often in the left arm in men, but may be the jaw, back, neck or stomach. (I once had a cardiologist tell me he considered any pain within five feet of the heart a heart attack until proven innocent…but he’s a bit biased.) This happens because the heart sends pain signals but the brain isn’t very well wired to interpret them and misinterprets the source of the problem.
*Shortness of breath. When tissues get low on oxygen, we feel short of breath even if the breathing itself is fine.
*Just feeling weird: Faint or dizzy (brain not getting enough oxygen), anxious or nauseous (a side effect of the stress reaction we’re having internally to try to encourage the heart. Diarrhea and vomiting sometimes arise from the gut problems.
Are those signs always a heart attack?
Of course not. People sometimes confuse heart attacks and indigestion, panic attacks, or just even food poisoning. Without a cardiac monitor, it’s hard to be sure.
More risk-accepting types sometimes suggest taking an antacid if it *really* feels like indigestion and treating for heart attack only if that doesn’t help. More risk-averse types say treat everything like a heart attack so do don’t miss that early treatment window. Personally, I’d consider if the situation (recent meal of spicy food, for example) makes the indigestion likely; but as I repeat, it’s your call.
Use emergency services if they’re available.
Seriously, if Salty or I show these signs I’m calling 911 first, then thinking about on-hand preps. The pros have truly life-saving tools and experience.
AEDs save a lot of heart attack victims
I saw a stat yesterday (didn’t write down where, sorry) that 90% of people who get treatment with an Automated Electronic Defibrillator (AED) within the first minute survive. Compare that to the less than 50% survival of first heart attack that was the norm when I was a kid and that sounds pretty darned good. It’s a little misleading, of course: You’ve got some Very on the ball people on hand if you’re getting treated in the first minute. Still, AEDs save a lot of lives, and take minimal training to use well.
They’re not free. I looked around a bit and saw nothing under $1000 except refurbs.
If available, the AED was (in my Red Cross certification course) the go-to answer, preferably while somebody else was dialing 911.
An AED is a battery pack with some chest electrodes and a single-purpose computer to take and interpret the heart rhythm and shock the heart to reset it if necessary.*
Aspirin? For a heart attack? Heck yeah.
Ok, giving a ‘headache tablet’ to someone having a heart attack sounds a little ludicrous, but here’s the logic: Besides being a painkiller and anti-inflammatory, aspirin inhibits platelets. Platelets enhance blood clots. You inhibit those platelets with an aspirin, you might keep that heart attack from getting serious enough to kill.
I’ve heard various opinions on immediately giving aspirin if a heart attack’s suspected. The people at Harvard Medical School (1) are among the people who recommend it, and I’ve heard they’re pretty smart cookies.
They recommend one non-enteric coated, 325 mg tablet, chewed before being swallowed. Ok, it tastes nasty. Beats dying. Chewing greatly speeds the effect. You may have heard of taking Alka-Seltzer instead, since its fast-absorbing and has aspirin; but chewing an aspirin was even faster.
Maybe you don’t have plain old, non-enteric coated, 325 mg aspirin around; since there are so many anti-inflammatory painkiller choices. Seriously though, it’s $1 for a small bottle. That’s insurance *everybody* can afford. (If all you have on hand is the one-a-day low dose 81 mg aspirins, four of those is about the same as one normal tablet.)
CPR?
Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is basically manually replacing heart and lung activity by cycles of press-and-release on the chest. It’s not hard to do, but a training course is a good choice. The same courses usually also teach AED use.
Honestly, for heart attacks, CPR is most useful for keeping someone alive when their heart has stopped and EMS is on its way. It can’t fix the problem by itself. (Near drowning is another issue; CPR alone does often work there.) It’s not as good as restarting the heart with an AED, but is considerably better than nothing.
Heart attacks kill people every day. With a bit of prepping for them, you might well save a life. It’s not as dramatic as stopping a Zombie Apocalypse, but it’s a heck of a lot more likely.
References
1) Aspirin for Heart Attack: Chew or Swallow? Harvard Medical Publishing, Harvard Medical School. Accessed 12-28-18. https://www.health.harvard.edu/heart-health/aspirin-for-heart-attack-chew-or-swallow.
2) Warning signs of a heart attack. American Heart Association. Accessed 12-28-18. http://www.heart.org/en/health-topics/heart-attack/warning-signs-of-a-heart-attack
* Thanks for the image. I did not alter it. The author offered it for free use so long as the user linked to the page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AED_open_cutout.jpg
Excellent advise. This from a guy who has had five.