This is the worst conclusion to jump to by the way. I had a heart attack last year at 39 with no larger cause that could be established. No chronic heart disease, exercised regularly, no family history and so on. It’s just one of those things that can happen. I then went on to get vaccinated, have COVID and get a booster all without issue.
Just some heart flutters I hadn't had before that I in hindsight should have probably got checked out. They continued after I had the heart attack but have disappeared completely now. But lots of people also have them and they're completely benign so who knows really.
I was swimming hard 5x a week and didn't notice anything during that and the weekend before was hiking about the countryside carrying my kids on my shoulders so it feels a bit of a mystery. I'm pretty sure, again in hindsight that I had a milder attack/angina on the Thursday before which I chalked up as heartburn. Because it was during the night I sort of soldiered through it and fell asleep again. Which could have been very bad.
The actual heart attack I had whilst swimming and because I'm an idiot, just slowed down a bit and finished another 30 minutes of swimming. It only got very painful after I was chilling after my swim. I got out and dry heaved a couple of times in the bath room and walked home. Lay down, took some antacids, that did nothing and it was painful so got my wife to take me to the hospital. They seemed pretty skeptical that there was much wrong with me until they hooked me up to an EKG and then I got filled full of drugs and ambulanced straight into surgery. Ended up with a stent as the main left artery feeding the heart was totally blocked. It's an amazing experience as you're totally conscious for the surgery and get to watch whats happening on a monitor. The only really painful part was a lower branch getting collapsed, I got some morphine for that but am not 100% convinced it did much of anything. Instant relief once it was opened again.
Scary. I know heart disease runs in my family; my dad had a heart attack around 39 as well... but he was also a heavy smoker at the time, was living an almost entirely sedentary lifestyle (walk to the car drive to work, sit at a desk for eight hours, drive home, then sit on a couch until bedtime). His brother had died early of some congenital heart defect. You'd think a heart attack would have been a kick in the keester to start living better but he's still mostly living the same way almost 20 years later (minus the smoking- he swapped that for nicotine gum which I don't think is really much better)
I'm 30 now and with every year I tell myself "I really need to eat better/exercise more/etc or else I'll have a heart attack like dad". It's stories like this that make me even more scared haha. Lesson learned: listen to your body.
Yeah I’m not going to lie, it’s taken quite a bit of time not to be anxious every time I have any sort of chest pain. I even went back to the ER one time which turned out to be nothing. I’m back exercising and living relatively healthily so hopefully get many more years in but this was so random that I’ve lost a sense of trust of my own body. It seems like a drag but take care of yourself!
Without the Apple watch monitoring your heart rate: you don't see the warning signs early enough and have a fatal heart attack, once.
With the Apple watch: you get alerted earlier, get to hospital and survive your heart attack. So you can go on to have another, and another, and another. All contributing to the "heart attacks while wearing Apple watches" statistic ;)
