Is This Just Heartburn?
by Leslie Ludwick
Two months ago I thought I was having heartburn, although i had never experienced heartburn, I couldn't imagine it being anything else. I had a burning sensation in the middle of my chest after having a cup of coffee. I threw the rest of the cup out and backed off of coffee. A couple of weeks later, same sensation. I hadn't had coffee and I couldn't think of anything else I had done that was similar to cause the episode. I took a couple of tums/antacids, and forgot about it. As the weeks progressed the problem became more frequent, longer lasting and more painful. 6/16/2011-Forward to Thursday. I came home from work and here it comes; now keep in mind when these "episodes" happen the onset it extremely fast. Pain in my chest that radiates down my right arm. The pain is so severe now that it renders me motionless. This time I had my daughter take me to the E.R. I walked into the E.R. telling them I had chest pains. They didn't mess around. That had me back for an EKG. The reading was negative. I proceeded to another room in the E.R. where they did the first of three enzyme tests. This was to see if I had in fact had a heart attack. All three tests were negative. Chest, lung x-ray/neg, bladder ultrasound/neg, finally nuclear stress test, negative. I spent two days in the hospital and heart issues had been ruled out. 6/20/2011-One day later, here we go... Out of a dead sleep, chest pains, right arm pain etc, waited about 45 minutes for the symptoms to subside. Back to sleep, an hour later, here we go again. I knew I was not going to be able to handle another "episode". I called a friend to take me back to the hospital. I arrive and once again explain i am having chest pains. Again the race me back to a room to do the EKG, only this time panic set in. They raced me to a room where there were several physicians waiting to draw blood do IV's etc. Today I had a cardiac stent placed in my left anterior artery and right now 16 hours I feel so much better. Listen to your body, you know it best. When something isn't right it, you know best.
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