Grief, sudden stress or even long term back ground stress can cause heart attacks.
Japanese researchers, identified and named a coronary health issue linked to grief and called it "tako-tsubo cardiomyopathy" (In Japanese,' tako-tsubo' means a ceramic fishing pot used to trap octopus. It is a similar shape to a distended left ventricle.). It is now more usually known as "apical ballooning syndrome", "stress-induced cardiomyopathy" or the "broken heart syndrome".
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What Is The Broken Heart Syndrome?
Broken heart syndrome is the sudden weakening of the heart muscle usually brought about by extreme sudden emotional stress. This is the short-lived enlarging of the left ventricle – described as "ventricular apical ballooning". This simply means the apex of the left ventricle of the heart enlarges.
Stress is a known cause of this heart condition and while it is usually treatable there have been cases where the wall of the heart chamber has ruptured - an un-survivable health crisis.
The acute phase of this condition does not usually last more than about a week but it can mimic a heart attack with chest pain and shortness of breath. Obviously, any sudden onset of chest pain and shortness of breath should be checked out by a Doctor immediately.
The Mayo Clinic describes the broken heart syndrome "as a temporary condition bought on by stressful situations"….when… "a part of your heart temporarily enlarges".
A Heart Attack But Not As We Know It.
When on arrival at hospital, a patient suffering from a suspected heart attack is discovered to have the left chamber or ventricle of the heart bulged it is a sign that the heart problem may not be a typical heart attack. Tako-tsubo cardiomyopathy must be considered. If the patient is found to have a recent history of an emotional crisis then is likely to be the case.
Typical of this type of unusual heart attack are elevated levels of the hormones that trigger the "fight or flight" response. In modern life this is rarely useful to us and the accumulation of these hormones, if unused, are themselves a stress on our bodies. Most of these hormones originate from the adrenal gland and if present long term, or sometimes if produced suddenly and then maintained for a few days, can cause very undesirable side effects apart from broken heart syndrome.
A typical finding when patients suffer from tako-tsubo cardiomyopathy is an otherwise healthy heart showing a lack of significant heart or vascular disease.
Treatment
Treatment might be with a blood thinning drug and aspirin has been suggested as effective.
Recovery
If the patient survives a bout of stress-induced cardiomyopathy they usually recover fully within two months once their life is back on an even emotional keel.
Symptoms And Effects Of A Broken Heart
Apart from the sudden onset of chest pain and shortness of breath, stress cardiomyopathy may also cause an irregular heart beat or increase - or even slow down heart beat.
There have also been reports of a build up of fluid in the lungs (pulmonary edema) which can also be symptom of a heart attack or congestive heart failure.
Symptoms of pulmonary edema include difficulty in breathing, coughing up blood, excessive sweating, anxiety and pale skin. Confusingly someone suffering from stress-induced cardiomyopathy may also display some of these symptoms.
Are You Vulnerable?
Women it seems are more vulnerable to suffer from broken heart syndrome than men and, according to one study, women over the age of 50 were found to have suffered 90% of the known cases.
Family and friends should keep a watch on the health of the recently bereaved for a few days after stressful events such as the death and funeral.
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Thank you for this excellent article. I lost my 81 year old mom on September 2nd. She had been dealing with a break-up with a man who had promised marriage after dating for 3 and a half years. That happened in June and I know she was left very hurt. He never gave her an explanation and then married another woman a month later, someone he had been seeing while dating my mom. We knew nothing about it. I took her on August 31st to an emergency care facility but they believed she only suffered from anxiety. Everyone that knew her believed that she died of a broken heart. Your article helped put much into perspective. I wish I had read it earlier or known about this.
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