Ann's Story
In 1988, I found myself very fatigued. My doctor decided that the cause was likely stress as in the previous few months, my father had passed away, I had had a miscarriage and we had moved into a new home. However, the fatigue became a bigger problem when I found myself needing to lie down mid-afternoon and thus was not adequately attending to our two young children. On a subsequent visit to my GP, my BP measured 180/110. I was immediately sent to a cardiologist who upon diagnosing me with Fibromuscular Dysplasia (FMD) in my right renal artery, hospitalized me. An angiogram was done and subsequently an angioplasty of my renal artery. I was prescribed medication for blood pressure ‘for life’. However, in doing some research, I determined that hypertension may be helped with acupuncture, so I made frequent trips out to New Westminster for acupuncture treatments. (This treatment was not readily available then in Vancouver.)
A few months later I told my GP that I would like to take myself off my meds and see how my BP measured. It continued to register in the normal range and I went on with my life.
Thirteen years later, in 2001, the extreme fatigue return. My blood pressure measured within the normal range. However, at a step class, I found that I couldn’t complete the class. A week or so later, I noticed one morning, when cleaning my teeth, that I had some tightness in my throat. I assumed that I had swallowed some toothpaste. Later that day, the tightness returned as I was running up some steps. How could I be having a heart attack…..no cholesterol problem, a non-smoker, seemingly fit and not overweight? Two days later, there was a slightly concerning incident when driving with my husband to a movie. I noticed the throat tightness again. Then in the movie, I also had pain, off and on, running down my arm. I asked a doctor friend and his wife,who were going to dine with us after the movie, about my symptoms. He directed us to go to the emergency department immediately where I was diagnosed as having a heart attack.
During the angiogram, Dr. Chris Buller, determined that the look of the obstruction in my
artery appeared in the likeness of FMD, although he hadn’t been aware that FMD occurred in the heart. (It was not generally known to occur there.) He did not do an angioplasty as the blockage was in a longsection of a secondary artery which would not withstand the procedure. Dr. Buller subsequently started a study with myself and 6 other women whose CD’s he had reviewed, determining that they also looked to have FMD as the cause of their heart attacks. These women had been initially misdiagnosed as having normal cardiovascular disease.
In 2012, when Dr. Buller left Vancouver for a Toronto hospital, I was referred to Dr. Jacqueline Saw, who had started doing research herself in what she called SCAD. She suggested that it might be helpful for me to attend the Healthy Heart program for myself but also for those who have been recently diagnosed. That is, for them to see someone, many years later, living ‘normally’. (I had been dismissed at the St. Paul’s Healthy Heart program, after one session following my heart attack, as essentially being too fit. Of course, there was no awareness of SCAD at that time.)
I realize now how helpful the Healthy Heart program is in regaining one’s confidence and in understanding FMD and SCAD and I continue in a maintenance program there.