British women unaware of heart attack symptoms
Heart attacks kill more than 40,000 women in the UK every year.
Yet a recent poll by the British Heart Foundation has found that many women over 50 are unaware of the symptoms of a heart attack, and that only 10 per cent have had a conversation about risks of heart disease with their GP.
Another poll showed that less than half of British women would dial 999 if suffering from chest pain, one of the best-known symptoms of a heart attack.
Associate medical director at the British Heart Foundation, Dr Mike Knapton, said: “These results show serious gaps in the way women are thinking about heart health – they highlight the common myth that heart disease is a middle-aged male health problem which simply doesn’t affect women in the same way.”
Dr Kathryn Griffith, President of the Primary Care Cardiovascular Society, said that some funding had been provided, but that the message had not yet reached those at greatest risk: “What really needs to happen is for a younger woman on Coronation Street or Eastenders to have a heart attack.”
Read the full story on the BBC news website.
And..many GP’s are unaware of the symptoms in women also…as I know from bitter experience having approached mine complaining of the text book signs but being sent away accused of mishandling my health and stress levels…then suffering a large heart attack..I was 49 and there is a history of people in my family of members dying around this age from heart attacks – my father and his did.
My GP insisted that while I ticked virtually all the boxes in terms of risk – the factor he preferred to rely upon ultimately was that I had not entered menopause and was therefore “protected” by higher levels of certain hormones!
On the night I had my event the consultant I saw in hospital told me it was unusual for women to survive their first incident as so few were recognised as having symptoms indicating something was imminent and unless the event itself was particularly spectacular many would just stop at home thinking it to be something else…this was almost my story!
I do not disagree that raised levels of awareness help but, wonder what use this is at a point in time where we are about to see huge chunks of the health service sustain cuts that will inevitably mean the focus is more on responding to crisis than inserting proactive methods of avoiding these issues especially where they are lifestyle related.