Oddball symptoms

There was a man raking leaves in his backyard who decided to go inside and rest for awhile. He picked up a book and settled into a comfortable chair to read, suddenly he began to have pain behind both ears, a pain described as cold ice picks being shoved into both of his ears, when he could no longer stand the pain, and being prone to migraines in the past he went and took a hot shower, and planned to lay down with a pillow over his head to rest until the pain went away...

A woman with a toothache, went to see her dentist complaining of a terrible pain in an upper molar on the right side of her mouth, after an examination and completely going over the x-rays of her mouth there was nothing found to be wrong, but the pain was still there...

A man doing a treadmill stress test at his cardiologists office suddenly gets a leg cramp in his upper thigh and asks to stop for a minute, thinking it strange that his muscle cramped up after barely starting his walk on the treadmill...

What do these three people have in common? Some of you already know the answer, but for those who don't I'll give you a minute to contemplate the three scenarios, and I want you to know, all three situations really happened...

Ok I guess that's close enough to a minute so here goes.

All three of these people were having a major heart attack, yes I said major, there was no chest pain, no left arm going numb, and no falling out on the floor.

Pay attention to your heart (Photo Source)

The first man was me. This heart attack was On the ninth of January 2014, Ray stopped me from taking a nap and took me to the emergency room instead, there I got to ride in a speeding ambulance with lights and sirens blaring to the Cath lab in Palm Springs, California where a blood clot causing a 100% blockage was removed, and a stent was installed, the Cardiologist said "I'm surprised you made it here, you should have died at home!"

Less than a year later the artery that contained this stent completely plugged up, plugged to the point that it could not be repaired during my open heart surgery. I had suffered another heart attack! One they call a Silent Heart Attack and now my only option was bypass surgery which repaired everything except for one area of my heart which is now nothing but a mass of non working muscle, this lead me to having a defibrillator installed due to the low ejection rate that my heart now produces... Now I have a new lease on life and also a safety belt that we call "The Bentley" installed in my chest, waiting to give me a shock if need be, seriously folks Life is Good.

The woman after leaving the dentists office went to the emergency room where she too was found to be suffering a major heart attack. She survived her cardiac episode as well, in spite of her non textbook symptoms.

The man on the treadmill obviously was in good hands at his Cardiologists office, his heart attack was spotted as soon as the leg cramp began, but had he been anywhere else when he got this cramp in his thigh, who is to say what the outcome could have been.

Weird symptoms? Yes, Textbook symptoms? Not even. So how do you know if you are having a cardiac event?

Symptoms of a heart attack can include; Pain or pressure in your chest. This pain or discomfort can travel to your back, down your arm or up the side of your neck into the jaw. You can feel like you are full, have a feeling of heartburn or indigestion, you may have a choking feeling and actually get sick to your stomach and vomit, these are just a few of the symptoms that you can have.

Symptoms of a myocardial infarction, coronary occlusion, or a heart attack in men is described as a crushing pain in the chest, but sometimes women describe their symptoms more like tight muscles, stress, heartburn, or even asthma like symptoms. A woman's chest may feel tight with unexplained nausea, cold sweats or unexplained dizziness and shortness of breath.

These are some of what they call the textbook symptoms and it is important that we pay attention to any of these and take action quickly! Delaying getting these symptoms checked can be deadly! The sooner you get help the better your chances of survival are. Get yourself to the ER or better yet call 911 or your emergency medical services.

Now there are oddball symptoms like my ear pain, my cardiologist tells me that I am his poster child for strange symptoms, and every visit rather than first ask me if I have had any chest tightness he asks "How are your ears Jimmy?" and my answer to this question is what lead to my latest stress test.

In addition to everything we have talked about for heart attack symptoms, be sure to remember the oddball symptoms also.

Some people have ear and molar pain, and even leg cramps. But seriously anything unusual that is not normal for you should be checked out. It's much better to get checked out for nothing than to ignore a cardiac event and to never wake up at all.