Hi. Quick break from the posting for a serious PSA.
Please have a bottle of aspirin in your home. Make sure the tablets can be chewed as well as just swallowed. Make sure you remove any fiddly foil seal and such. Don't use this aspirin for regular pain relief, just keep it around and know where it is.
Hopefully, you'll never need it and will just feel silly for having it. But if a bad time comes for you someday, being able to chew aspirin when emergency services tells you may save your life.
Aspirin is an anticoagulant, meaning it reduces your blood's ability to clot. Normally this is an undesirable side effect, because if you're bleeding you want your blood to clot and stop the bleeding.
But heart attacks and other cardiovascular events can be caused by blood clots obstructing blood vessels. Your body's not supposed to let that happen, but for various reasons sometimes it does. When it does, minutes count and you _need_ to tip the odds in your favor.
Fastest way to do that without a hospital is to chew some aspirin. Chewing it breaks through the outer coating that's meant to delay release of the active compound, and dumps anticoagulant into your bloodstream as quickly as possible.
It won't magically solve clots that are already there, but it's putting your finger on the scale. Your body is constantly in a tug of war between biological pathways that want to form clots, and pathways that prevent and dissolve them.
Chewing aspirin is like sending reinforcements to the "pls no clots" faction of your body, as quickly as possible. It stops new clots forming, and existing ones growing. It gives your body some extra margin that it can use to start dissolving the one(s) causing your cardiac event.
It's not a cure, not even close. It's an emergency mitigation that _may_ buy you extra time while paramedics reach you and get you further help.
But trust me, you want to have that option.
Note, this is something you want to have available, but you should not freelance it. If you think you're having a heart attack, embolism or other cardiac event, call 911/999/112/whatever your local version is, tell them where you are and what's happening, that you have aspirin and aren't allergic, and follow their instructions.
In some countries you can buy "low dose" aspirin, which come with slightly different instructions. That's ok too.
This PSA brought to you by: hi! I just had a serious pulmonary embolism, and spent a couple days in intensive care. I'm okay, the immediate danger has passed, though full recovery will take a while longer.
Having aspirin on hand allowed me to begin anticoagulation treatment within seconds of the bad time starting, and 10-60min sooner than waiting for first responders or ER treatment. There's a high chance that was the difference between "scary but you'll be fine" and an obit.
@danderson What were your symptoms?
I'm at risk so it would help.
@roknrol None of the obvious ones :/
Some shortness of breath all day, gradually increasing - like I'd just gone up a couple flights of stairs but I was just standing around. Went away while sat down.
Then in evening, in a ~10min span, suddenly worse shortness of breath, extreme upper body sweating (like, fully coated in a layer of sweat, felt like I was being cooked), feeling faint, and eventually lost consciousness for ~10s. That's when 911 and aspirin happened.
@danderson Thank you very much. I have experienced those symptoms (although not altogether like that) at other times, so your explanation lets me know what to look for.
My heart attack was not typical either, so I just like to know what the "possibles" are.
@roknrol Yeah, annoyingly all these symptoms are also things that happen for other less drastic reasons, so even if you're looking for them it can be hard to tell if it means anything.
Really the big lesson for me is never ignore shortness of breath you can't explain, however slight. Might be nothing, or it might be slight just because it hasn't gotten worse yet :/
@roknrol The early buildup was barely noticeable in the moment, I just put the windedness down to "I must be tired", not "oh this is very obviously wrong".
But, no chest pains at all, no racing or irregular heartbeat until the climax. Just a little winded and tired, and then everything all at once. First responders after the event did note persistent tachycardia (110-130bpm resting heart rate), but I don't know if that was present before.
@danderson Wow, that sounds really scary. I'm glad you pulled through ok.
My heart attack presented as a muscle cramp in my back...that was it; no other symptoms other than not being able to sleep (which I chalked up to anxiety and back pain). Eventually it wore me down and I went to the ER.
@roknrol Ah yeah, upper back pain was one that ICU docs mentioned is somewhat common - either because a muscle's being starved and cramping, or just referred pain from elsewhere in the chest because bodies are stupid.
It's really tough :/ I'm glad you were okay too.
@danderson @roknrol I'm curious if my daily biking + fitbit would make that more apparent, or not. If I'm winded, there's a reason (more reasons than there used to be when I was younger, but still, a reason). Seems like trying to run the motor up to its usual bike-to-work range would provoke some symptom, also. Last time I had the flu, the first symptom was "why am I so slow?"
I keep aspirin in my back pack. Back when I shared an office with Rick Hudson, we kept some taped to the door.
Dave Anderson
Roknrol
dr2chase