Spontaneous Coronary Artery Dissection

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My scad story

March 11, 2020

December 27th 2017 I was training at the gym, as I always did. I’m very active and in great shape. I felt a horrible burning down my throat. I thought I had pulled a chest muscle so I waited all day until it got so bad at 6 PM I decided to go to the ER. My daughter came with me and as we walked in I told him that I had burning in my throat they did an EKG and they immediately had me in the back room.

They then did my troponins which came back slightly elevated and they called the cardiologist, who asked if I was OK going into the Cath Lab. I have never heard of the Cath Lab so of course at first I said no way. After convincing from all of my family I decided to go in the Cath Lab. The cardiologist told me I had a tear and he put one stent on it. A week later I was then discharged from the hospital in disbelief that at 42 years old I was having a heart attack.

Unfortunately my road became a lot worse as every month I was having problems one stent turned into three stents which turned into four stents….which eventually on April 8, 2018 my widow maker dissected and basically exploded I had emergency triple bypass.

I can’t say that it’s been an easy road I’ve been in the hospital over 40 times, 9 cath labs, too many heart attacks to count at 45 years old. I sit with an ejection fraction at 42%. My life has changed in ways that I never thought. I’m extremely tired all the time I stopped living in fear, but as you could imagine being in the hospital as many times as I have it’s definitely hard. I’ve had more setbacks than I’ve had come back‘s, but I try to keep a positive mind and I pray that there are some research that can give us more answers for us SCAD patients.

If I can give any advice ….never stop advocating for yourself trust your body trust the signs and educate people. The day before my triple bypass my cardiologist told me it was in my head, and sure enough it wasn’t.