Pa­tient DS knows she should have rec­og­nized the warn­ing signs. When she looked back at 2021, the year she suf­fered a stroke, the 54-year-old pri­ma­ry school prin­ci­pal, re­calls “an over­worked, ded­i­cat­ed pro­fes­sion­al who de­pri­or­i­tized her health, nav­i­gat­ing a pan­dem­ic and re­mained in de­nial”. “I had let my blood pres­sure go un­con­trolled, and I re­mained chron­i­cal­ly stressed and in­ac­tive for too long,” she says. She knew she was play­ing with her health but got caught in the vi­cious cy­cle of tak­ing care of the world and not her­self. Post-stroke and lost her abil­i­ty to freely move her dom­i­nant hand and low­er limb, there is much she shares she would do dif­fer­ent­ly.

It’s no sur­prise that many peo­ple feel scared, con­fused and over­whelmed af­ter a car­dio­vas­cu­lar event (heart at­tack or stroke) which are life-chang­ing events. Af­ter your treat­ment, you like­ly re­ceived in­struc­tions and a lot of in­for­ma­tion from your doc­tor. With time to re­flect, you may be try­ing to un­der­stand what hap­pened. You are sure to want to know what you can do to avoid heart prob­lems in the fu­ture. Nav­i­gat­ing the road to re­cov­ery isn’t easy. Ques­tions, con­fu­sion, un­cer­tain­ty and even fear are com­mon.

Make pre­ven­tion your first pri­or­i­ty

Af­ter a first heart at­tack or stroke, most peo­ple go on to live a long, pro­duc­tive life. How­ev­er, around 20% of pa­tients age 45 and old­er will have an­oth­er heart at­tack with­in five years of their first.

Car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­ease re­mains the world’s num­ber one killer, re­sult­ing in 18.6 mil­lion deaths an­nu­al­ly. Ac­cord­ing to the Amer­i­can Col­lege of Car­di­ol­o­gy, “Heart dis­ease is the lead­ing cause of death in women in Amer­i­ca. Each year, heart dis­ease and re­lat­ed risk fac­tors are missed in women.” Ini­tia­tives to ad­vo­cate Women’s Health, ear­ly screen­ing, know­ing your num­bers, know­ing the signs and symp­toms of car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­ease and what to do if those symp­toms are present, con­tin­ue to be at the fore­front of proac­tive and Pre­ven­ta­tive Care.

If you’re like most women, you’re prob­a­bly so busy tak­ing care of every­one else, your own well-be­ing and health tends to fall last. But you need to make your heart’s health a pri­or­i­ty and en­cour­age oth­er women to do the same.

5 ways to pre­vent an­oth­er heart at­tack

1 Take your med­ica­tions as pre­scribed.

Cer­tain med­i­cines can great­ly low­er your risk of an­oth­er car­diac event. That’s why it’s im­por­tant for you to un­der­stand your med­i­cines and take them cor­rect­ly.

2 At­tend your fol­low-up ap­point­ments.

At­tend­ing your fol­low-up ap­point­ments will help your doc­tors keep track of your con­di­tion and re­cov­ery.

3 Par­tic­i­pate in car­diac re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion.

Car­diac re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion is a med­ical­ly su­per­vised pro­gram de­signed to help you re­cov­er af­ter a heart at­tack. You should have re­ceived a re­fer­ral to car­diac re­hab when you were dis­charged from the hos­pi­tal – if you didn’t, ask your doc­tor about it.

4 Get sup­port.

It’s nor­mal to feel scared, over­whelmed or con­fused af­ter a heart at­tack. Get­ting sup­port from loved ones or from peo­ple who have al­so ex­pe­ri­enced a heart at­tack can help you cope.

5 Man­age your risk fac­tors.

Af­ter a heart at­tack, it’s im­por­tant to man­age risk fac­tors (such as high blood pres­sure, high cho­les­terol and di­a­betes) by tak­ing med­ica­tions, quit­ting smok­ing, eat­ing healthy food and get­ting ac­tive.

TEST YOUR TICK­ER

Know­ing your risk lev­el is the first step to man­ag­ing it.

Use this heart dis­ease risk cal­cu­la­tor cre­at­ed by Mayo Foun­da­tion for Med­ical Ed­u­ca­tion and Re­search us­ing con­tent from Fram­ing­ham Heart Study to as­sess your RISK of Car­dio­vas­cu­lar Dis­ease.

https://www.may­oclinichealth­sys­tem.org/lo­ca­tions/can­non-falls/

ser­vices-and-treat­ments/car­di­ol­o­gy/heart-dis­ease-risk-cal­cu­la­tor