What Happens to the Body During a Heart Attack?
For a healthy human being, blood is pumped by the heart to body and other organs. This is termed as coronary circulation and is done by coronary blood vessels. These provide oxygen rich blood to different areas and body parts and help to maintain a consistent supply of oxygen and nutrients.
In our coronary arteries, the walls are uniformly thick and smooth which allow the unrestricted blood flow to important areas of the body. People with high cholesterol levels can cause the formation of a plaque on the inner surface of the artery walls. A person may not realize it, but if this continues for years and years, the plaque hardens and starts restricting blood flow. Since the path becomes narrow, blood has a lot of difficulty flowing through it. The medical term for it is atherosclerosis and it is the main cause of Coronary Heart Disease. Another manifestation of this plaque is it becoming unstable and ruptured to give rise to a thrombus or a clot. If this is prolonged, it may lead to a heart attack due to the obstruction of blood flow.
ACUTE MYOCARDIAL INFARCTION
The medical term for a heart attack implies the stoppage of blood flow to the heart or some part of it, mainly due to the blockage caused by a plaque. In order to be able to spot this successfully, we need to perform a test known as an Angiogram which shows us the narrowing caused due to a long period of atherosclerosis. Visible Symptoms can be one or many. The most commonly observed ones are tiredness, problems in breathing, sharp pain in the jaw, neck, shoulder or left arm. Some people have also complained about being nauseous and excessive sweating. But, as we mentioned earlier, it may be that there are no visible symptoms. There is a term known as “silent ischemia” which implies a serious shortage of blood and oxygen to your heart. A patient with this kind of a condition is in a high risk category.
Another side effect of damaged heart muscles is slower electrical impulses. This results in a serious case of arrhythmia which in some cases can be fatal. It can also lead to ventricular fibrillation and ventricular tachycardia. To treat these, we use a cardiac defibrillator.
HIGHER RISK
Anyone over 50 with a suspect health history, bad eating habits, smoking/drinking problem and high cholesterol has a great risk of a heart attack. However, the danger can be reduced to a big extent if proper care and precautions are taken.
Dustin Gomez administers heart attack treatment.org. For more information on what happens to the body during a heart attack, visit http://www.heartattacktreatment.org/
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