By NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — It's important to note during American Heart Month that heart attack symptoms aren't always easy to distinguish, especially in older people.
"I think people are afraid of calling the ambulance or coming in to the emergency room and then the doctor saying, you have indigestion," said Aubrey Nuss, Director of the Heart and Vascular Center at Hutchinson Regional Medical Center. "You don't always know that. People sometimes will have some kind of bizarre symptoms of heart attacks. We've had patients with a toothache or an earache and as soon as we open up that artery that's blocked, their earache goes away and they didn't even associate the earache with the heart problem until afterward."
If you are having symptoms and believe they are heart-related, call 911. Reno County EMS can help get you treated faster.
"Time is muscle," said Reno County EMS Director Dave Johnston. "The hardest working muscle in the body is the heart. You really need that. It's pumping blood throughout the entire body. Any time that there's the least amount of restricted blood flow to the heart, it starts getting irritable."
The intent, once it's clear that there is a heart issue, is to get you into the cath lab as quickly as they can.
"People, I think, are afraid of heart caths, but heart caths are really not painful," Nuss said. "You don't have the same kind of nerve endings in your arteries like you do in your skin. The worst part of the whole procedure, typically, is when they numb up your groin, so you have the stick and burn, like you do at the dentist. After that, you really shouldn't have any discomfort and most people don't even know that we're in there. We look at the arteries that feed the heart muscle and we try to find any blockages. Usually, heart attacks are caused by blood clots. Once we identify that blood clot, we open those with a balloon and stent. Typically, patients feel immediate relief."
Typically, heart cath patients go to ICU overnight. If all goes well, they are often discharged the next day.