This Young, Healthy Runner Thought Her Heart Attack Symptoms Were Bronchitis
Jen Hummel, 35, has always been a runner. After spending her high school years running cross country, she kept it up recreationally, balancing training runs and races with taking care of her two young children.
“For me, it’s the best exercise and gives me time to think,” she says.
But in early December, she started to experience pain and discomfort almost immediately after she’d start running.
“I had pain going down my arms and in my chest. It would come up in my chin,” she explained. “I’ve always been someone who can push myself, but after I’d get up to five minutes of running, I had to stop and walk.”
She thought maybe it was bronchitis or a chest cold. Since it was close to the holidays, she figured she’d better schedule a doctor’s appointment to make sure she wouldn’t get anyone else sick. But that’s when her doctors realized it was much more than a cold.
“After I talked to my doctor about my symptoms, he ran an EKG, and it was a little bit off,” she said.
A Surprise Diagnosis
Her doctor advised her to go to the emergency room to get some chest X-rays taken, since they thought she may have a blood clot. The X-rays came back fine, but the doctors were still concerned: They kept her overnight so a cardiologist could see her first thing in the morning.
He decided to perform a coronary angiogram, a specialized test that uses X-ray imaging to check out your heart’s blood vessels, which become visible thanks to a specialized dye injected into your blood first.
“It was done through my wrist, and I wasn’t all the way under during the procedure,” Hummel said. “And I heard them go, ‘Welp, there it is.’”
When they finished her procedure, they showed Hummel that she had a 95 percent blockage in the left anterior descending artery of her heart. When that becomes completely blocked, it can cause a particularly lethal heart attack referred to as a widowmaker.
Doctors performed a balloon angioplasty to open up the artery, and inserted a stent to keep it open-helping improve the blood flow to the heart.
“The doctors said if I had waited two more weeks, I might not be here,” she says. “I could have died from a major heart attack.”
She was shocked. As a young, healthy runner, she certainly didn’t fit the picture of someone who needed to worry about heart disease.
“I don’t have high cholesterol, don’t smoke, and eat healthy,” she says. “But I learned afterwards that I had a family history of heart problems, and have relatives who have also had stents put in. My only risk factor was having a family history.”
When Heart Attack Signs Are Subtle
The symptoms Hummel was experiencing leading up to her diagnosis were different from her norm, but they weren’t obvious enough to make her immediate think something was wrong with her heart-that’s why she thought she just had a chest cold.
But unlike what you see in the movies, crushing chest pain isn’t the only indicator that something’s amiss with your ticker.
“Typical heart attack symptoms include chest pain, a pressure-like sensation in the chest, pain sometimes going to the left or right arms/shoulders or into the back and jaw,” says Nasser Khan, M.D., interventional cardiologist at the Iowa Clinic.
Problem is, lots of women don’t experience those “typical” heart attack symptoms, Khan says. According to the American Heart Association, women may or may not feel heart attack symptoms in their chest, which may be the biggest difference in symptoms between men and women.
Instead, they can experience other signs, like “shortness of breath, feeling weak or fatigued, pain in the neck or jaw, nausea, or even vomiting,” Khan says.
That’s why it’s important to be vigilant about your body and recognize any symptoms that arise that are out of the ordinary (And if you think something’s amiss, don’t wait around-women wait about 37 minutes longer than men before contacting medical services for potential heart problems, a delay which can be serious, according to researchers from Switzerland).
“If a runner is having symptoms, for example, like you were just able to run 10 miles but for some reason now you can’t, that is a warning sign,” says Khan. “If you have chest pain, pressure, feel more tired and simply like you can’t do what you did before, it is important to see your doctor.”
Recovering-and running again
After Hummel’s operation, she started cardiac rehabilitation, where she started walking again while her heart rate, heart rhythm and blood pressure were monitored.
“We started with five minutes of walking, and by my last session on January 31, 2019, I was up to running 25 minutes,” she says. “I was a little nervous to push myself when I started running again. I was nervous to feel that pain and discomfort again, but once I was able to get past the first five minutes and not feel that, I welcomed the endorphins and the sense of peace and comfort that I have after I finish my run. My heart is back to normal, and I’m so grateful!”
She’s already signed up for a 75-mile relay race called Market-to-Market that will take place in May 2019, and plans to sign up for the Des Moines Half Marathon in October.
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Since her cardiac rehabilitation has ended, she’s continued training on her own, and runs 3 miles five times a week.
“I hope my story encourages runners to listen to their bodies. If you think something’s wrong, just go get it check out,” she says. “It could truly save your life.”
And for preventive health, it’s important to schedule routine check-ups with your doctor and learn about your family health history.
“Even if you are a young, healthy runner, you may still have risk factors for heart disease. If you have a family history, you should be extremely vigilant and always have routine checkups for high blood pressure and cholesterol,” says Khan. “And if you have severe chest pain, call 911.”
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