Young blood -Clean living Debbie Anderson didn't expect to have a heart attack at aged 39

Published on Friday 19 September 2008 17:11

KEBAB-scoffing, pint-swilling Jerry Morton on Coronation Street is your stereotypical heart attack sufferer. The only question on viewers lips when he finally bit the cobbles, was, 'What took it so long?'

But it's a mistake to think that heart attacks only happen to overweight, 50-year-old men with a fried-food habit, as Debbie Anderson, a call-centre worker from Dunfermline, can testify. She was just 39 when she had a heart attack last year, and the mother-of-two had no idea what had happened until she found herself in hospital.

"I never thought someone my age could have a heart attack," she says. "I got up in the morning and started having chest pains that shot down my left arm into my hand, and became excruciating. I knew the symptoms because I'd done first aid, but I thought, 'This can't be a heart attack. I'm too young.'"

But when she phoned NHS 24 for advice, they immediately sent an ambulance. With her husband David at work and her parents abroad, it was down to her son Craig, now 13, to leap into action and get his four-year-old sister Zoe round to neighbours while he waited with his mother.

Most heart attacks occur as a result of coronary heart disease, when the arteries that supply blood and oxygen to the heart muscle become narrowed by a gradual build-up of fatty material. This can form a blood clot, and if it blocks the coronary artery, the heart muscle is starved of blood and oxygen, and may be permanently damaged. This is called a heart attack.

Symptoms can range from a severe pain in the centre of the chest to having mild chest discomfort that makes you feel generally unwell. Women may experience different symptoms to men, but classic indications are central chest pain, pain spreading to the arms, neck or jaw, feelings of nausea and sweatiness. Less common symptoms include a dull pain, ache or 'heavy' feeling in the chest that can spread to the back or stomach, light-headedness or dizziness.

If you believe you are having a heart attack, the British Heart Foundation advises that you should call 999 immediately. It could save your life. Treatments include thrombolysis (the injection of a drug into the bloodstream to dissolve the clot and restore the blood supply to the heart) and coronary angioplasty (where the artery is widened). Some people may also need a heart bypass operation.

To prevent heart attacks, it is sensible to stop smoking, control high blood pressure, reduce blood-cholesterol levels, keep physically active, achieve and maintain a healthy weight and, if you have diabetes, control your blood glucose.

Although Anderson had suffered from a heart murmur since birth, she didn't have high cholesterol or high blood pressure, nor did she smoke or drink, so she never imagined she could suffer an attack. "I thought it was indigestion and I'd be back home in half an hour," she says. "When they said it was a heart attack, I was shocked."

Even when she had been diagnosed, she phoned her boss and said she'd be back in a week. But it would be another eight months before she was well enough to return. "I'm pretty much back to normal but it took a long time." Nowadays, she listens to her body, and if she's tired she'll rest. "I don't pick up heavy things or rush about.

"The Queen Margaret Hospital in Dunfermline was great. It had a cardiac programme, rehab classes and brilliant nurses. Walking into the exercise class was the hardest thing, as most of the other patients were over 65. Since then, I've met two other girls under 40 that have had attacks, and it's good to speak to someone my age who has a family too."

Sticking around for her children is the motivation that keeps Anderson alert to the warning signs now. "My main concern was for my children. If I hadn't phoned for an ambulance, I might not have been here to see the kids grow up. My daughter just started school, and on her first day I was so thankful I was there to see it."

What caused Anderson's heart attack is still a mystery, although her grandfather died of one at 40 and she thinks there may be a link. "Because they don't know what caused it, it's always at the back of my mind that it could happen again," she says. "I spend as much time with my kids now as I can, enjoying them, because I know how lucky I am to be here to do it."

For more information, visit www.bhf.org.uk and www.chss.org.uk

facts and figures

Scotland is the heart attack capital of the UK. The death rate for men is 50% higher than in the south-west of England, and around 90% higher for women.

Someone has a heart attack in Scotland every 15 minutes.

Nearly one in ten Scots is believed to live with some form of heart and circulatory disease.

Heart and circulatory disease is the main cause of death in Scotland. In 2005, nearly 11,000 women died from these conditions.

listen to your body

DIANE HERON, from Edinburgh, was only 46 when she had a heart attack, and like Debbie Anderson, she never dreamt that the symptoms she was suffering from could be serious.

The mother-of-five, now 48, works at a health project in Niddrie, and had been using the gym all week prior to the attack. She wasn't overweight, didn't smoke or drink and thought she was just suffering from indigestion.

So she didn't take it seriously, even when she doubled up for a minute with severe pain at work – because when it eased, she joked to her colleagues, "I think I'm having a heart attack," little suspecting that this was, in fact, the case. "I remember the pain spreading all over my chest and up to my throat, and I clutched at my chest," she says. "Then, when it eased, we just laughed it off."

Even when she tapped her symptoms into the NHS Direct website, and the response came back that she should phone 999 as she could be having a heart attack, she wasn't having any of it. "I sat there thinking, 'No way,' and ignored the advice. The signs were my body's way of telling me something was not right, but I ignored all of them."

The next day, when she still felt unwell, her daughter phoned NHS 24, and the operator sent an ambulance straight round. "When my daughter opened the door to let the paramedics in, I told them, "I'm not going on a chair or a stretcher and don't put those bloody blue lights on, there's nothing wrong with me,'" she says.

In hospital, an X-ray showed a blood clot on her heart, which was enlarged. Heron was diagnosed as having heart failure – where a damaged heart muscle finds it difficult to pump blood around the body. Her treatment included heparin injections, warfarin to thin the blood and dissolve the clot, and bisoprolol to slow the heart rate; plus ramipril to lower the blood pressure, aspirin to help keep her blood thin, and omeprazole to stop her stomach from getting upset with all the medication. "Now I only have to take aspirin, bisoprolol and ramipril, as my warfarin was stopped after two years.

"I still do everything I used to do," she says, "only now it takes longer. Looking back, I realise that my family suffered more pain than I did. If my daughter Michelle hadn't forced me to go to hospital, I might not be here today."