Doctors Coined Broken Heart Syndrome as a Factual Medical Condition
Lisa Wysocky landed herself in the ER in July 2009, claiming that she had a heart attack after spending a night on her bedroom floor in excruciating pain. Did she have a heart attack…or was it something else?
Wysocky’s adult son had passed away the previous day after an overdose due to his struggle with his mental illness. After the doctors ran a few tests on her, they concluded it wasn’t a heart attack. Well, what was it? Doctors call it: takotsubo cardiomyopathy, apical ballooning syndrome or stress cardiomyopathy. In layman’s terms? Broken heart syndrome.
Just last week, I thought all the symptoms of a heartbreak were purely an illusion/mental…but, I was completely wrong! “Broken heart is not a term coined up simply by romantic novelists or angst love sick teens or even Hollywood movies. Rather, it is a severe and real medical complaint,” writes Annabel Tautou of frenchtribune.com.
Risha Mae Ordas, another wonderful Psych2Go.net writer, noted in “10 Psychological Facts About Human Feelings” that heartbreak can hurt physically and this article is intended to further elaborate on the condition.
The Mayo Clinic Staff writes that: “In broken heart syndrome, there’s a temporary disruption of your heart’s normal pumping function, while the remainder of the heart functions normally or with even more forceful contractions.”
Doctors note that the people they normally classify with the condition are patients who have just undergone stressful situations that yielded major stress on their heart’s functioning ability. Cardiologist IIan Wittstein has been studying the condition for a decade and states:
“The first several patients we saw, many of them had [just experienced] the death of a loved one, a spouse, a parent.” But he also says some patients with the condition have just undergone a trauma like a severe car accident, robbery, and most interestingly: a woman landed herself in the ICU on her 60th birthday after being extremely startled when her guests yelled: “SURPRISE!”
A professor of clinical psychiatry, Peter Shapiro describes that when undergoing broken heart syndrome, your body releases a vast amount of chemicals and this sudden flood can shock your heart muscle, leaving it unable to pump as it normally would.
Can someone die due to a heartbreak?
When experiencing heartbreak syndrome, irregular heartbeats (arrhythmias) or cardiogenic shock may occur. The heart muscle has the potential to be so deeply affected that the heart is insufficiently capable of pumping blood to the body.
As a result, the patient may develop heart failure and this can be extremely fatal.
Doctors advise those that are experiencing the following symptoms and fear that they are experiencing an extreme case of heartbreak syndrome, rather than a minor case, should check into a hospital immediately:
- Chest pain
- Shortness of breath
- Arm pain
- Sweating
Have you ever gone through a heartbreak? Describe your experience with the excruciating condition and how you overcame it.
Xoxo,
Chrissy
References
Is broken heart syndrome real? (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/Conditions/More/Cardiomyopathy/Is-Broken-Heart-Syndrome-Real_UCM_448547_Article.jsp#.VktpUnarTIU
Mayo Clinic Staff. (2014, March 1). Broken heart syndrome. Retrieved from http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/broken-heart-syndrome/basics/definition/con-20034635
Metcalf, E. (2011). Can you die of a broken heart?. Retrieved from http://www.webmd.com/heart/features/broken-heart-syndrome-stress-cardiomyopathy
Tautou, A. (2013, April 26). ‘Broken heart syndrome’ is fatal. Retrieved from http://www.frenchtribune.com/teneur/1317663-broken-heart-syndrome-fatal
Thomas, C. (2010, December 8). Yes, Virginia, there is such a thing as a broken heart. Retrieved from http://myheartsisters.org/2010/12/08/broken-heart-syndrome-takotsubo/
Edited by: Zoe
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