Question
Sharon,
I received this in email, and had heard of such actions before, is this a valid proceedure? Please comment.
Subject: This could save a life
Not a Joke...how to survive a heart attack when alone. Please read.
THIS WAS WORTH PASSING ON - PLEASE REMEMBER IT.
Let's say it's 6:15 p.m. and you're driving home,(alone of course), after an unusually hard day on the job. You're really tired, upset and frustrated. Suddenly you start experiencing severe pain in your chest that starts to radiate out into your arm and up into your jaw. You are only about five miles from the hospital nearest your home, unfortunately you don't know if you'll be able to make it that far.
What can you do? You've been trained in CPR but the guy that taught the course neglected to tell you how to perform it on yourself.
HOW TO SURVIVE A HEART ATTACK WHEN ALONE
(Since many people are alone when they suffer a heart attack, this article seemed in order.) Without help, the person whose heart stops beating properly and who begins to feel faint, has only about 10 seconds left before losing consciousness.
However, these victims can help themselves by coughing repeatedly and very vigorously. A deep breath should be taken before each cough, and the cough must be deep and prolonged, as when producing sputum from deep inside the chest. A breath and a cough must be repeated about every two seconds without let-up until help arrives, or until the heart is beating normally again.
Deep breaths get oxygen into the lungs and coughing movements squeeze the heart and keep the blood circulating. The squeezing pressure on the heart also helps it regain normal rhythm. In this way, heart attack victims can get to a hospital.
Tell as many other people as possible about this, it could save their Lives!
From Health Cares, Rochester General Hospital via Chapter 240's newsletter
AND THE BEAT GOES ON ... (reprint from The Mended Hearts, Inc. publication, Heart Response)
Answer
Theoretically sound, but I wouldn't stop taking my cardiac meds
More to the point in this case, most cardiac deaths are caused by an uncontrolled cardiac rhythym and coughing and hitting ones self on the chest forcefully can create enough of an electrical impules to affect the offending rhythym, similar to the "defibrilation" that doctors and paramedics use for the same problem. (I once had a patient who did this!!!)
Just don't start whacking your chest for no reason!!!! It can also cause a normal heart to go into one of these deadly rhythyms!!!!
Answer
It's going to depend on what is causing the heart attack. Some things can't be reversed.
The described procedure could potentially convert an abnormal heart beat to a more normal one. It's called a Valsalva maneuver. It can also be accomplished by bearing down very hard as if trying to evacuate your bowels. The hard coughing works much the same way.
I've seen Doctors use this method in CCU to convert someone from Atrial Fibrillation back to normal sinus rythym. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But if it's all you've got, I'd damn sure give it a shot. Problem is....most people deny they are having a heart attack, or they panic, or the abnormal heart beat has already diminished blood flow enough that lack of oxygen has affected their ability to think clearly.
If it were me in the scenario described, I would do the 911 call WHILE trying to do the Valsalva manuever. Have the Pros on the way in case it doesn't work. There is a very big risk that it won't work.
I have also heard that persons who take 1 aspirin when experiencing chest pain have better chances of surviving as well.
Thanks for asking.
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Keeping you safe, healthy, and on the road.
Nurse Red
Visit us at www.Truck.net/abmsVisit us at
Answer
This theoretically sounds good, but in real life that is not how it goes. Heart attack does not necessarily mean a fatal arrhythmia of your heart. When you have chest pain by itself or radiates down an arm, get help asap. Rhythm changes do occur and are likely to occur within the first 24 hours of an actual heart attack. But if you are driving along and say go into ventricular fibrillation--it happens before you know what hit you. You will be unconscious before you can think of what to do. I have experienced episodes in patients of mine in CVICU countless times--and they are "out" before they know what hit them. Most people don't have the first symptom of chest pain with their heart attacks either according to a recent study done by UAB. Better yet quit smoking, eat right, and exercise and you will give yourself a better chance of not having heart problems in the first place.