"Women Don't Have Heart Attacks." So Wrong

"Women don't have heart attacks." It seems like this is what several different doctors thought when they treated a 37 year old woman with shortness of breath and an abnormal EKG.

The patient in question was the forensic psychologist Dr. Helen Smith. Her must-read story is published on her blog: More Than You Wanted to Know About My Heart Attack.

She indeed had a heart attack and developed complications like a ventricular aneurysm and VF/VT which required treatment with an ICD (implantable cardioverter defibrillator) and Tikosyn. The T-shirt sign "Death. Been There. Done That" is no joke.

Dr. Hele (a.k.a.InstaWife) is the spouse of the popular political blogger and a law professor InstaPundit. She has been blogging for only 2 months but her website already gets 1800 visitors daily.

It is important to spread the awareness that the number one cause of death in women is cardiovascular disease (not breast cancer). In fact, according to the American Heart Association, cardiovascular disease claims more women's lives than the next six causes of death combined.

It looks like Dr. Helen has made a good recovery. We wish her all the best of health for the future.

She also wrote about the downsides of the one-payer socialist-type health system in Canada.

Update 3/5/06:

Dr. Helen and her husband Glenn Reynolds (a.k.a. Instapundit) have a podcast on iTunes. The
latest issue is a Heart Health Podcast: cardiac experts answer listeners' questions.


References:
FAQ - Heart and Cardiovascular Disease - U.S. Department of Health
Focusing on heart disease in women - The Health Show #922 Podcast
A malpractice case from the Massachusetts Medical Law Report. KevinMD.com
Wikipedia: Instapundit, Libertarian
Violent Kids.com
Thanksgiving - Glenn Reynolds.com
Image source: DrHelen.blogspot (used with permission)

Related:

Dangers of unrecognized heart disease: Husband dies while giving wife CPR (both found dead, age 60, 59) http://goo.gl/LZ39U