A Vernon, B.C., woman is sharing her heart health story in hopes of it serving as a reminder to always listen to your body.
“If it doesn’t feel right and something is telling you that something is off, pay attention to that,” said Carla Buchanan.
Last June, Buchanan, who is a trail and ultra runner, was training for an upcoming race when she suffered a major setback.
“I experienced a very sharp sudden pain in my mid-back, ” the 52-year-old woman said. “I really felt like I just tweaked my back.”
The pain, she said, came and went but soon began impacting her shoulders and then her hands.
“I looked at my husband, who was running with me, and I said, ‘Yeah, I am getting some tingling in my hands, this just doesn’t feel right,’” she told Global News.
The couple went straight to Vernon Jubilee Hospital, a decision that proved to be the right one as tests revealed Buchanan had experienced what’s called a spontaneous cortorary artery dissection, or SCAD.
“It was described to me as a tear in the coronary artery that filled with blood and created a hematoma and a blockage and that is what caused the heart attack I had,” Buchanan said.
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According to the Heart and Stroke Foundation, SCAD is a condition that in 90 per cent of cases affects women.
“Heart disease is on the rise and it’s the number one cause of death for women globally,” said Allison Henderson, regional lead for Interior Health’s cardiac program.
The grim reality has prompted IH to raise awareness about women’s cardiac health through its ‘Wear Red’ campaign, which is underway for the month of February.
Unlike men, Henderson said women face certain unique factors that can increase their risk of heart disease.
They include pregnancy complications, earlier menopause and polycystic ovary syndrome.
“Women present differently. They can be affected by different cardiac disease,” Henderson said. “They can experience symptoms that are different from those classic cardiac symptoms that we are more familiar with.”
Some of those different symptoms can include fatigue, nausea and stomach pain.
“I think often women will dismiss a lot of the symptoms they have…trying to ensure they are caring for others and so they kind of sweep those things under the rug, ” Henderson said. “They don’t necessarily get them checked out.”
For more information and women’s heart health, you can check out the Heart and Stroke Foundation’s website.
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