Don't Be the Next 40-Second Casualty
Around the eighth hole, Ike started really regretting all of those Bermuda onions...
Granted, the hamburger (piled with said onions) he had scarfed down had been huge.
So he figured the onions and greasy meat were now punishing his insides with acid reflux, ruining his Friday afternoon round of golf in Denver.
As Ike told a fellow player, " seem to be backing up on me. I seem to have a little heartburn."
At home, relaxing with some painting and playing pool seemed to help as the indigestion subsided by dinnertime.
But sometime between 1:30 a.m. and 2:30 a.m., those darn Bermuda onions struck again – this time, with even more intensity...
He woke up with a terrible pain near his chest. Milk of magnesia his wife gave him didn't work its usual magic either.
An hour later, he was under the care of his doctor who gave him a prescription painkiller. The assistant press secretary said that the indigestion was "the kind of 24-hour stuff many people have had."
Except it didn't take just a day for Ike to shake off the illness.
Ike, or President Dwight D. Eisenhower, had suffered a massive heart attack, as revealed by an electrocardiogram test taken hours later that day.
News of the misdiagnosis and inefficiency of medical care floored Americans. Stocks similarly recoiled in horror, with the Dow Jones nearly crashing. And the surgeon general likened his shock to how he felt when Pearl Harbor was attacked.
Luckily, Eisenhower made it through. But he was hospitalized for roughly six weeks.
And had his doctors and staff persisted with their denial that he was "just fine" – and delayed that test any further – Eisenhower's presidency would have ended right then and there.
Despite the advances in medical technology and diagnostics we've made since then, plenty of heart attacks are still going undiagnosed.
According to the American Heart Association, around 20% of heart attacks go completely unnoticed. That's out of the estimated 805,000 heart attacks that strike U.S. victims every year, or one heart attack happening every 40 seconds, on average.
Failing to notice a mild heart attack can leave you particularly vulnerable to further coronary trouble. So it's critical to spot the signs of one, and to act fast.
First, a heart attack happens when the blood flow (supplying oxygen and nutrients) to your heart significantly decreases or becomes totally blocked. So parts of your heart muscle begin to die. With enough damage, the heart can stop beating altogether – called cardiac arrest.
The classic symptoms are feeling sharp pain in the chest, or angina, and shortness of breath.
But heart attacks can come without angina, too. Some other sneaky warning signs include...
- Feeling pain or tingling in the jaw, neck, back, arms, or stomach...
- Breaking into a cold sweat for seemingly no reason...
- Suddenly feeling extreme fatigue or dizziness...
- And gastric symptoms like nausea, vomiting, or – like Eisenhower – indigestion.
You can even have these early, or prodromal, symptoms for even days in advance before a heart attack strikes. That's why it's so important to listen to your body. If you begin experiencing any new unusual symptoms and feel like something just isn't right, get medical attention right away because heart damage can become permanent after about 20 minutes of the blood flow being blocked.
Some data even indicates that around a third of people who've suffered a sudden heart attack die before reaching the hospital, while another 40% arrive alive but never recover.
A 2021 study from the Journal of the American Heart Association looked at the health outcomes of more than 6,600 people who had a heart attack between January 1, 2010, and January 1, 2017.
Of these cases, 168 people had an initial heart attack followed by a recurrent heart attack within 90 days... and nearly half of the folks with a recurrent heart attack died within five years. In comparison, just 22% of the people who had a single heart attack died within a five-year period.
So it's always better to get help if you suspect something might be wrong.
If you think you're having a heart attack, here's what to do:
- Call 911. If you can't reach emergency responders, have someone else drive you to the hospital.
- Chew an aspirin. Unless you have an allergy to aspirin or a condition where your doctor has told you to never take it, chew one and swallow. This will thin your blood and help prevent any blood clots from getting worse.
- If your doctor has given you nitroglycerin for chest pain caused by your existing coronary artery disease, take it as directed.
- Sit or lie down and try to stay calm until help arrives.
If you're with someone who is having a heart attack, they may need cardiopulmonary resuscitation ("CPR"), so be sure to brush up on your certification. You can take online or in-person CPR classes through the Red Cross or the American Heart Association.
Some kinds of heart attacks can come without warning. But knowing the signs will still allow you to take steps to prevent a recurrent heart attack, which is typically more life-threatening than the first.
To read more about the types of heart attacks, along with how heart attacks manifest differently in men versus women, check out this issue of Retirement Millionaire. Not a subscriber? Get a trial right here to access.
What We're Reading...
- How dogs and their owners' heart rates sync during interaction.
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Here's to our health, wealth, and a great retirement,
Dr. David Eifrig and the Health & Wealth Bulletin Research Team
February 18, 2025