Spontaneous Coronary Artery Dissection

46 yr old female

April 1, 2016

I have been overweight all of my life, In 2014 I had a gastric sleeve and lost 80lbs as of now. My husband and I have joined a gym and work out 3-5 days a week for an hour. I was getting fit and healthy. I was feeling better than I ever had before. On a Saturday I had minimal chest pain and some left arm pain but I have arthritis in my left shoulder so I took it to be pain from the shoulder. As the week went on the pain got worse, but I was stubborn and did not see a doctor and on Thursday of that week I was cooking, I had a burning pain across my chest, back, and down my left arm. I felt faint, starting sweating badly, and massive amount of fatigue. It scared me I went to my “safe place”, the bath tub and sat in there until I felt better. I fell asleep in the bath tub and was in there for at least 2 hours. I got out felt better and was just tired.

Friday and Saturday I had little pains off and on but Sunday morning the pain woke me up and I told my husband to take me to the ER. They confirmed that I was having a heart attack but the nitro was not working nor was the clot buster drug. I was air lifted to the nearest Cardiologist. A heart cath was done and a stent was put in my heart. When I awoke he said I had a rare condition called Spontaneous Coronary Artery Dissection. He had only seen 3 cases in 20 years of practice and he needed to talk to some other doctors about my condition. I became the talk of the floor. The doctor did go in and put in 2 more stents in the LAD artery 2 days later.

I was in the hospital a total of 5 days 4 nights. I am now on 6 medications and I am 1 week post op. I still have slight chest pains off and on that I hope are normal. I do tire easily right now but I guess in time will resolve.