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It's On The Rise/But Why?Jul 05 '02 Write an essay on this topic.The Bottom Line I would like to share this information because it happened to me and I never saw it coming. In recent history, Sudden Cardiac Death is claiming more than six times as many life's as car accidents. What is Sudden Cardiac Death and why are so many seemingly healthy people falling victim? In this article, I hope to shed some light on this troubled disease and hopefully help someone out there that might be at risk. People who succumb to Sudden Cardiac Death are most often older, but recently more and more younger people are falling victim. In fact, in a seven year period (from 1989 to 1996) the rate of cardiac death in young women jumped by almost 30%. A lead researcher says that for the most part this can e attributed to the increases in obesity and smoking, yet in many cases there are no know heart or health problem and seemingly no risk factors. What exactly is the pattern to Sudden Cardiac Death you might ask. Well, let me try and give you a brief explanation. Something will trigger the electrical impulses in your heart to misfire. This then causes an abnormal heart eat. The heart beat will then become rapid or chaotic and in some cases both. This makes it impossible for the heart to pump blood to the rest of the body. Without immediate medical care, the cardiovascular system will rapidly collapses. This most often time will happen within an hour of the onset of symptoms. The good news is that the hearts rhythm can almost always be brought back to normal if it treated right away with and electrical charge to the heart. This can be done with a defibrillator or sometimes through the use of CPR if the defoliator is not readily available. Many sudden cardiac death victims may never show any symptoms of it, but, they will almost always turn out to have risk factors of heart disease. In many cases, Sudden Cardiac Death, may be caused by an underlying physical disorder and in many cases the first sign of trouble will also be the last as the person will die. That is, of course, unless you are extremely lucky like I was. As most of you know, I have had a recent absence from Epinions. The reason is that because one day, and for no apparent reason, my heart just stopped. I was one of the lucky ones who is still here to tell my story. Almost seven years ago, I had a post partem cardiomyopathy after the birth of my daughter Megan. After several months of treatment, I was told that all was well and that I could get on with my life. For the most part that was true until the day my heart and my families would stop. Like I said, I am one of the lucky ones, and I refuse to let this beat me. The damage to my heart from the cardiomyopathy was greater than had been anticipated and my heart was left double the size it should be. I was told it was the size of a sixty year old man who had smoked for forty years. This left me at a great risk for exactly what happened to me. Did it change my life? Yes!! but, change is many time better than the alternative. CHANGES: 1.) My diet has changed a great deal. Although, I have always been careful and never over weight, I make that extra effort to make sure that I stay within my target weight. I make sure to stay well hydrated and find myself drinking more water than sodas and coffee now. I also make sure that I do get enough to eat. 2.) I changed my exercise patterns to e more heart smart and not so much of the toning or gullible as I now call them. 3.) I have oxygen and a home monitoring system. When I am not feeling like myself, I put myself on them. Better safe than sorry. 4.) We also have an Automated External Defibrillator at home. This is a much scaled down version of the hospital types, but is easy enough for a child to use. In fact, all of my children are trained on the machine and my youngest is only four. This device actually will only work in the case of a cardiac arrest and otherwise will not activate. This will allow time for medical help to arrive to you and can e much more effective and quicker than CPR. Life has changed for me and my family, but life is good. I rest more, eat less, and relish every moment of every day. I am not sure that I did all of that before. Each day I remember: What was--was! What is--is! What I always thought could be may never be. Debbie  |
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