What does a heart attack feel like?

Since I had my heart attack last Thursday...this has been the most popular question from the people I know.

So, I thought I would share how it was for me without all of the medical terminology.

Last Thursday I woke up at 5:30 am to an actual heart attack. I struggled to get to the bathroom to pee because I was so dizzy... and not your average lightheaded dizzy but full on the room was totally moving kind of dizzy.

After going pee I decided I needed to get to the living room where my boyfriend was (thank goodness he hadn't left for work yet)
There was no way in heck that I could walk so I dropped down to the floor and crawled out of the bathroom and down the hall.

Feeling dizzy was only part of it...I was sweating the coldest sweat of my life...I had never felt anything like this ever. I was drenched in sweat and my boyfriend said when he touched me  I felt ice cold to him too.

My heart didn't hurt.

I had a cramping sensation that went from my right arm, across my back, between my shoulder blades and then to my left arm.
I could feel this up my neck as well and around the front of my chest. It was up high on my chest, right below my neck not where my heart is. Very strange.

And I couldn't breathe well. My air was not totally cut off but I felt like I was panting. It didn't hurt to breathe in but it was almost impossible to exhale. Talking was so difficult.

My hands were tingling and so were my feet.

Scary stuff.

The paramedics showed up in under 9 minutes but here is the kicker...

My blood pressure was totally normal.

Pulse rate was totally normal.

The portable EKG thingy they brought into the house to check me with came back normal.

They thought I was having an anxiety attack but loaded me into the ambulance (I walked with one on each arm)
Once inside the ambulance, the paramedic just looked at me so puzzled but began asking me a series of questions that I could not answer which then led to him using a 12 lead ECG on me...

His discovery was that I was having a massive heart attack.

From there it was all a blur, between the aspirin I was trying to chew and the Nitro that was dissolving under my tongue I was fading in and out of sleep. They actually pulled over on the side of the road to work on me, got the IV started and gave me pain meds and then we started driving again but this time with the sirens going and I remember asking the paramedic at that point if I was going to die...He said "no way". :)

I was taken to a heart Hospital in Portland and they put two stents in my heart through my wrist.
I remember them cutting off my shirt and telling me to stop wiggling around because the table was thin and they didn't want me to fall off. That's it.

I woke up in the ICU Recovery Unit a little while later, not even sure what time it was, maybe 8:30am.

I stayed the night so they could monitor me and was released the next day with a bunch of meds and fear of dying that I have never known before.

I am managing it but 1 week later I am still pretty frightened about  what happened that morning.

Having a heart attack didn't hurt much, not like I always imagined it would. It was uncomfortable.
I had been having symptoms for about week prior to this and I knew something was not right but had hoped the symptoms would go away.

• I was getting a little dizzy just sitting down when I was doing nothing at all.

• I could feel my heart beating which had been happening for a long time but as the last week grew closer it was more apparent and the beating was very erratic.

• I had sharp pains in my heart that only lasted a few seconds.

• About three days prior to the Heart attack I was having small heart attacks that would come in waves. Once I would sit down and relax they would subside. 

I thought I had a pinched nerve in my back and neck, that's how it felt.

The good news in all of this is that there was no damage to my heart at all. The Right coronary artery was blocked but they fixed it in time.
Crazy though because my brain just won't let this go, the damage this has done to my well being is another story all together.

I hope this info will help someone else.
Don't ignore your symptoms because you will most likely have some prior to your heart attack.

Listen to your body.