After Chris Prewitt finished lifting weights during a session with a personal trainer on December 27, 2023, he felt unexpected pain. While it was his first time working with this trainer, Prewitt, then 48, exercised often, including cardio and CrossFit.
“It wasn’t a very hard workout,” the 49-year-old from Avon Lake, Ohio, recalled to TODAY.com. “But afterwards, my triceps, biceps and chest were incredibly sore.”
Concerned, Prewitt’s trainer called in a sports doctor, who advised Prewitt to go to urgent care. His wife, Meredith, put their children in the car and rushed to pick him up. She missed the exit for urgent care but noticed it was right next to a hospital. She took one look at her husband, who was gray and cold, and rushed him to the emergency room. It was fortunate because Prewitt was having a heart attack.
“I had just one artery that was completely blocked,” he says. “The artery is the left anterior descending artery…the widow. »
“Image of health”
Over the years, Prewitt enjoyed exercising, running hundreds of 5Ks, two marathons and participating in CrossFit. He doesn’t drink or use drugs, eats a healthy diet, and prioritizes sleep.
“I’m often seen as the picture of health,” he says. “I do everything you’re supposed to do.”
In the year before the heart attack, Prewitt felt well for the most part, but he noticed that he tired easily. He attributed this to his age and his status as a parent.
“I didn’t know if that’s what (almost) 50 (felt) about,” Prewitt says. “I have two young boys aged 9 and 6 and I found myself a little tired at the end of my work day and sometimes needed a break before going to play baseball or playing soccer in the the courtyard.
To be on the safe side, he visited his doctor and had blood tests done three times. The most recent was a month before his heart attack.
“I had no markers of any kind. My total cholesterol seemed OK,” he says. “I didn’t have any real health problems, other than fatigue.”
For Christmas, his wife bought him a pack of five sessions with a trainer, and Prewitt immediately scheduled his first one. After practice, he explained the feeling he felt in his arms and chest to the coach, who felt concerned and found a doctor. That doctor recommended to Prewitt that someone take him to the emergency room to have his heart checked.
“I call my wife to come pick me up, which in itself is a miracle. I’m pretty stubborn,” he says. “I’m not one to take advice.”
On the way to the clinic, they got lost.
“She missed arriving for emergency treatment and went off the highway, and I was slumped in my seat,” Prewitt says. “She had never seen anyone so gray and she grabbed my hand. It was freezing. My heart had stopped.
Across the street, however, Meredith saw the Cleveland Clinic’s Avon Hospital on the Richard E. Jacobs Campus.
“She ran three red lights, stopped at the emergency room and ran inside,” he said. “A group of health workers came out, took me out of the car and took me back to work.”
For 20 minutes, Prewitt received CPR and a dozen defibrillator shocks as staff tried to return his heart to a regular rhythm. After stabilizing him, they sent him to another Cleveland Clinic facility with a cardiac catheterization lab. Tests showed that Prewitt had had a heart attack that caused the widows.
“I was able to be brought back,” Prewitt said, adding that he regained consciousness about 24 hours later.
Widowmaker’s Heart Attack
When the left anterior artery is blocked, what is known as a widow’s heart attack can occur. In younger patients like Prewitt, there may be no symptoms.
“About 30 percent of patients have no prior symptoms, but they die suddenly,” Dr. Emad Nukta, a cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic, told TODAY.com. “We see this primarily in younger patients rather than older patients, and that’s where the term widowmaker comes from.”
Sometimes patients experience subtle symptoms, such as fatigue, that they may not consider to be a sign that something is wrong.
“The worst is when they really had no symptoms. They didn’t know anything,” says Noukta. “They were exercising or working out, lifting weights or on a treadmill, and all of a sudden they drop dead.”
Symptoms may include:
- A feeling of indigestion
- Arm or neck pain
- Chest pain
Nukta says a heart attack is often accompanied by extreme pain, but that’s not always the case.
“There is a major misconception. They think the pain feels like a real burn or severe pain,” he says. “But the chest pain really isn’t that bad of a pain. It’s an uncomfortable pressure like pain, a crushing pain.
People whose lifestyles increase the risk of hardening of their arteries, called atherosclerosis, are at greater risk of becoming widowed, says Nukta. Risk factors include:
- Being a smoker
- Have high blood pressure
- Have high cholesterol
- Have a family history of heart attacks
- Have diabetes
He says it’s important for patients to know their family history to understand if they are at risk of becoming widowed. After a heart attack, most patients should continue to see a cardiologist.
“I’ll tell my patients that if you have a heart attack, you’re stuck with me,” he says. “You will always be a heart patient. »
“A very blessed life”
Although Prewitt knew that one of his grandfathers had undergone two bypass surgeries, he did not know that his other grandfather had died at age 49 of a heart attack that left him widowed.
“The lesson I give to everyone I have spoken to is that you may think you are doing all the right things, but if you are unaware of your genetic history you need to find out and tell your GP. ,” he says.
Prewitt now takes several medications to support his heart and keep his artery open. He recently completed cardiac rehabilitation.
“After 12 weeks, I was running nine-minute miles for a good distance,” he says. “I have no restrictions. A month ago I was at Universal (Studios) with my wife and boys and I rode a roller coaster. I continue to run and lift weights.
This experience taught Prewitt the importance of healthy habits and he encourages others to “take their health very seriously.”
“There are health markers or genetic elements that are coded into you that you can’t run away from,” he says. “With our knowledge and proactive medical care, you can identify these problems early enough and be able to do something before they become a real event.”
A heart attack caused Prewitt to re-examine his life.
“It’s incredibly painful to think about my young boys living without their father,” he said. “For most of my life, I was afraid of dying. Have I done enough? Have I lived enough, lived the type of life I want? And after this event, I am no longer afraid of dying. …I have lived a very blessed life.
News Source : www.today.com
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