OT Self CPR if you are having a Heart Attack

This is something I feel compelled to forward, again!
Bonnie

Subject: Self CPR if you are having a Heart Attack
Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2006 09:47:29 -0600


From Dan: Although I already knew this, this email was sent to me
from a good friend who recently survived a heart attack. Since he's
been there, done that, I thought it especially important for you to
feel the moment as he described it. Thanks to Jack.
Heart Attack Procedu NOT A JOKE
Tuck this in the back of your brain, sounds like something we should
all be aware of.

Women should also know that not every heart attack symptom is going to
be the left arm hurting.

Be aware of intense pain in the jaw line. You may never have the first
chest pain during the course of a heart attack.

Nausea and intense sweating are also common symptoms. 60% of people
who have a heart attack while they are asleep do not wake up.

The pain in the jaw happened to me and woke me from a sound sleep.

I was one of the fortunate ones. Trust me when I tell you it's pain
unlike anything you've ever experienced before.

Given a choice between natural child birth and a heart attack,
pain-wise; it's much easier to have a baby.

Let's be careful and be aware. The more we know..........

A cardiologist says if everyone who gets this mail sends it to 10
people, you can be sure that we'll save at least one life. Read
this...

It could save your life!!

Let's say it's 6.15pm and you're driving home
(alone of course), after an unusually hard day on the job. You're
tired, upset and frustrated. Suddenly you start experiencing severe
pain in your chest that starts to radiate out into your arm and up
into your jaw. You are only about five miles from the hospital nearest
your home. Unfortunately you don't know if you'll be able to make it
that far. You have been trained in CPR, but the guy that taught the
course did not tell you how to perform it on yourself.

HOW TO SURVIVE A HEART ATTACK WHEN ALONE

Since many people are alone when they suffer a heart attack, without
help, the person whose heart is beating improperly and who begins to
feel faint, has only about 10 seconds left before losing
consciousness.

However, these victims can help themselves by coughing repeatedly and
very vigorously. A deep breath should be taken before each cough, and
the cough must be deep and prolonged, as when producing sputum from
deep inside the chest.

A breath and a cough must be repeated about every two seconds without
let-up until help arrives, or until the heart is felt to be beating
normally again. Deep breaths get oxygen into the lungs and coughing
movements squeeze the heart and keep the blood circulating.

The squeezing pressure on the heart also helps it regain normal
rhythm. In this way, heart attack victims can get to a hospital. Tell
as many other people as possible about this. It could save their
lives!!

BE A FRIEND AND PLEASE SEND THIS ARTICLE TO AS MANY FRIENDS AS
POSSIBLE

From the Snopes website- this could KILL you rather than save your
life:

Origins: This helpful e-mail began its life on the Internet in June
1999, and in the spring of 2004, a Powerpoint presentation of it began
circulating online. Those kindhearted souls who started it on its way
likely had no inkling the advice they were forwarding could potentially
be harmful to someone undergoing a heart attack, but that is indeed the

case.

If you knew exactly what you were doing, this procedure it might help
save your life. If, however, you were to attempt cough CPR at the wrong
time (because you misjudged the kind of cardiac event being
experienced) or went about it in the wrong way, it could make matters
worse.

Cough CPR is not a new procedure - it has been around for years and
has been used successfully in isolated emergency cases where victims
realized they were on the verge of fainting and about to go into full
cardiac arrest (their hearts were about to stop) and knew exactly how
to cough so as to keep enough oxygen-enriched blood circulating to
prevent them from losing consciousness until help could be sought, or
they were under the direct care of physicians who recognized the crises
as they were taking place and were on hand to instruct patients step by
step through the coughing. Even were the afflicted to correctly
recognize they were experiencing the sort of cardiac event where cough
CPR could help, without specific training to hit the right rhythms
their coughing could turn mild heart attacks into fatal ones.

This is not to say cough CPR couldn't be effectively taught to patients
deemed at risk of further heart attacks. According to a widely
circulated news report surfacing in September 2003, a doctor in Poland
has been attempting exactly that. Dr. Tadeusz Petelenz of the Silesian
Medical Academy in Katowice Province claims to have successfully
instructed a number of his patients in the procedure, but it should be
noted his results have not been independently confirmed. While a
September 2003 Reuters report detailed the Polish doctor's championing
of cough CPR, a similar Associated Press report on the same subject
noted that "Experts said while the concept is provocative, it needs
more study" and that "Dr. Marten Rosenquist, professor of cardiology at
the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, and an expert in heart
beat abnormalities, said the concept is interesting but that Petelenz
showed no evidence his patients actually had arrhythmias."

It is unclear from the news reports whether the Polish heart patients
who supposedly experienced success with cough CPR were doing so under
strict medical supervision in a hospital or were going about their
private lives at the time of the cardiac events that prompted them to
attempt the procedure. It is one thing for success to be achieved in a
hospital setting where patients know intervention will swiftly follow
if problems are encountered, and quite another when patients are in
unscripted settings (at home, at work, or while driving in a car).
Would such instruction hold up in field conditions, where those about
to go into full cardiac arrest know there's no net under the tightrope?


Yet even if cough CPR can be effectively taught by physicians, it's not
going to be learned from an e-mail, at least not well enough to be
safe. Even if Dr. Petelenz's findings prove out, there's a wide (and
dangerous) gap between in-person one-on-one training by a professional
on hand to quickly correct a patient's mistakes before they become
habit and generic printed instruction wholly lacking in direct feedback
and guidance. Thinking one is a valid substitute for the other would be
akin to believing studying a typed set of instructions is all it takes
to learn how to drive a car well enough to take it down the freeway and
back.

The e-mailed advice about coughing during a heart attack leaves the
impression the "cough CPR" technique is endorsed by Rochester General
Hospital and Mended Hearts. Rochester General had nothing to do with
any of this - how its name came to be attached to this message is a
mystery. See their denial of having endorsed this e-mail.

Mended Hearts (a support group for heart disease patients and their
families) is not nearly so blameless.

Although the text of the e-mailed advice was published in a Mended
Hearts newsletter, the organization has since disavowed it and has a
page on its web site asking readers not to heed the advisory. The piece
on cough CPR found its way into that publication through a blend of too
much enthusiasm and a dearth of fact checking. From there, other
chapters picked it up, spreading the notion to an even wider audience.
Attempts now to distance the organization from it don't begin to undo
the damage done by the piece having been picked up from there.

Darla Bonham, Mended Heart's executive director, has since issued a
statement about cough CPR:
I've received email from people all across the country wanting to know
if it is a valid medically approved procedure. I contacted a scientist
on staff with the American Heart Association Emergency Cardiac Care
division, and he was able to track a possible source of the
information. The information comes from a professional textbook on
emergency cardiac care. This procedure is also known as "cough CPR" and
is used in emergency situations by professional staff. The American
Heart Association does not recommend that the public use this method in
a situation where there is no medical supervision.
Dr. Richard O. Cummins, Seattle's director of emergency cardiac care,
explains that cough CPR raises the pressure in the chest just enough to
maintain some circulation of oxygen-containing blood and help enough
get to the brain to maintain consciousness for a prolonged period. But
cough CPR should be used only by a person about to lose consciousness,
an indication of cardiac arrest, he cautions. It can be dangerous for
someone having a heart attack that does not result in cardiac arrest.
Such a person should call for help and then sit quietly until help
arrives, he says.

In other words, the procedure might be the right thing to attempt or it
might be the very thing that would kill the afflicted depending on
which sort of cardiac crisis is being experienced. Without a doctor
there to judge the situation and, if cough CPR is indicated, to
supervise the rhythmic coughing, the procedure is just far too risky
for a layman to attempt.

Forget about coughing - key to surviving a heart attack is obtaining
proper medical assistance within a very limited window of opportunity.
Once an acute myocardial infarction (AMI) has been diagnosed, speedy
injection of thrombolytic agents to dissolve clots is of the utmost
importance - the more quickly those drugs are delivered, the better
the chances of survival are. It's a race against the clock.

Most patients who present with minor chest pains usually look healthy
and show no signs of a heart attack. Electrocardiogram (ECG) results
tell the story though, so be sure to insist upon one being performed if
you've any doubts at all. Often mild heart attacks are left untreated
and undetected because hospital staff mistake a heart attack for
something more benign because the presenting symptoms are minor.

Rather than risk killing yourself with cough CPR, those experiencing a
heart attack should heed the advice of physicians the world over -
down a couple of Aspirin as an emergency remedy. Doctors believe that
during the early stages of a heart attack, Aspirin - which is known
to prevent blood platelets from sticking together - can prevent a
clot from getting bigger. In 1991 Dr. Michael Vance, president of the
American Board of Emergency Medicine, recommended that people who think
they are having a heart attack should "Call 911, then take an Aspirin."


Oh, and it probably makes a great deal of sense to chew the Aspirin
before swallowing. The sooner it is dispersed by the stomach, the
sooner it gets to where it is needed. During a heart attack, waiting
for the enteric coating surrounding the pill to break down naturally
could be a mistake.

In 1993 The American Heart Association began recommending a 325 mg
Aspirin at the onset of chest pain or other symptoms of a severe heart
attack. That bit of advice is going unheeded, though; a follow-up
report published in 1997 shows as many as 10,000 American lives a year
could be saved if more people who think they're having a heart attack
took an aspirin at the start of chest pains.

In terms of the drama of it, swallowing an Aspirin seems quite a
come-down from bravely trying to induce a perfectly timed coughing fit.
Less flamboyant is better, though; Aspirin saves lives, whereas
coughing might well cost them.

Barbara "from coughing to coffin?" Mikkelson www.snopes.com

Bonnie Patterson wrote:
This is something I feel compelled to forward, again!
Bonnie

Subject: Self CPR if you are having a Heart Attack
Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2006 09:47:29 -0600


From Dan: Although I already knew this, this email was sent to me
from a good friend who recently survived a heart attack. Since he's
been there, done that, I thought it especially important for you to
feel the moment as he described it. Thanks to Jack.
Heart Attack Procedu NOT A JOKE
Tuck this in the back of your brain, sounds like something we should
all be aware of.

Women should also know that not every heart attack symptom is going to
be the left arm hurting.

Be aware of intense pain in the jaw line. You may never have the first
chest pain during the course of a heart attack.

Nausea and intense sweating are also common symptoms. 60% of people
who have a heart attack while they are asleep do not wake up.

The pain in the jaw happened to me and woke me from a sound sleep.

I was one of the fortunate ones. Trust me when I tell you it's pain
unlike anything you've ever experienced before.

Given a choice between natural child birth and a heart attack,
pain-wise; it's much easier to have a baby.

Let's be careful and be aware. The more we know..........

A cardiologist says if everyone who gets this mail sends it to 10
people, you can be sure that we'll save at least one life. Read
this...

It could save your life!!

Let's say it's 6.15pm and you're driving home
(alone of course), after an unusually hard day on the job. You're
tired, upset and frustrated. Suddenly you start experiencing severe
pain in your chest that starts to radiate out into your arm and up
into your jaw. You are only about five miles from the hospital nearest
your home. Unfortunately you don't know if you'll be able to make it
that far. You have been trained in CPR, but the guy that taught the
course did not tell you how to perform it on yourself.

HOW TO SURVIVE A HEART ATTACK WHEN ALONE

Since many people are alone when they suffer a heart attack, without
help, the person whose heart is beating improperly and who begins to
feel faint, has only about 10 seconds left before losing
consciousness.

However, these victims can help themselves by coughing repeatedly and
very vigorously. A deep breath should be taken before each cough, and
the cough must be deep and prolonged, as when producing sputum from
deep inside the chest.

A breath and a cough must be repeated about every two seconds without
let-up until help arrives, or until the heart is felt to be beating
normally again. Deep breaths get oxygen into the lungs and coughing
movements squeeze the heart and keep the blood circulating.

The squeezing pressure on the heart also helps it regain normal
rhythm. In this way, heart attack victims can get to a hospital. Tell
as many other people as possible about this. It could save their
lives!!

BE A FRIEND AND PLEASE SEND THIS ARTICLE TO AS MANY FRIENDS AS
POSSIBLE

Thanks for posting this, Leslie. I cringe when I see the cough CPR posting
start to show up ( ex CCU nurse). It can, as the article pointed out, be
very dangerous.
Gen
http://community.webshots.com/user/Coren920


"Leslie & The Furbabies in MO." wrote in message
oups.com...
From the Snopes website- this could KILL you rather than save your
life:

Origins: This helpful e-mail began its life on the Internet in June
1999, and in the spring of 2004, a Powerpoint presentation of it began
circulating online. Those kindhearted souls who started it on its way
likely had no inkling the advice they were forwarding could potentially
be harmful to someone undergoing a heart attack, but that is indeed the

case.

If you knew exactly what you were doing, this procedure it might help
save your life. If, however, you were to attempt cough CPR at the wrong
time (because you misjudged the kind of cardiac event being
experienced) or went about it in the wrong way, it could make matters
worse.

Cough CPR is not a new procedure - it has been around for years and
has been used successfully in isolated emergency cases where victims
realized they were on the verge of fainting and about to go into full
cardiac arrest (their hearts were about to stop) and knew exactly how
to cough so as to keep enough oxygen-enriched blood circulating to
prevent them from losing consciousness until help could be sought, or
they were under the direct care of physicians who recognized the crises
as they were taking place and were on hand to instruct patients step by
step through the coughing. Even were the afflicted to correctly
recognize they were experiencing the sort of cardiac event where cough
CPR could help, without specific training to hit the right rhythms
their coughing could turn mild heart attacks into fatal ones.

This is not to say cough CPR couldn't be effectively taught to patients
deemed at risk of further heart attacks. According to a widely
circulated news report surfacing in September 2003, a doctor in Poland
has been attempting exactly that. Dr. Tadeusz Petelenz of the Silesian
Medical Academy in Katowice Province claims to have successfully
instructed a number of his patients in the procedure, but it should be
noted his results have not been independently confirmed. While a
September 2003 Reuters report detailed the Polish doctor's championing
of cough CPR, a similar Associated Press report on the same subject
noted that "Experts said while the concept is provocative, it needs
more study" and that "Dr. Marten Rosenquist, professor of cardiology at
the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, and an expert in heart
beat abnormalities, said the concept is interesting but that Petelenz
showed no evidence his patients actually had arrhythmias."

It is unclear from the news reports whether the Polish heart patients
who supposedly experienced success with cough CPR were doing so under
strict medical supervision in a hospital or were going about their
private lives at the time of the cardiac events that prompted them to
attempt the procedure. It is one thing for success to be achieved in a
hospital setting where patients know intervention will swiftly follow
if problems are encountered, and quite another when patients are in
unscripted settings (at home, at work, or while driving in a car).
Would such instruction hold up in field conditions, where those about
to go into full cardiac arrest know there's no net under the tightrope?


Yet even if cough CPR can be effectively taught by physicians, it's not
going to be learned from an e-mail, at least not well enough to be
safe. Even if Dr. Petelenz's findings prove out, there's a wide (and
dangerous) gap between in-person one-on-one training by a professional
on hand to quickly correct a patient's mistakes before they become
habit and generic printed instruction wholly lacking in direct feedback
and guidance. Thinking one is a valid substitute for the other would be
akin to believing studying a typed set of instructions is all it takes
to learn how to drive a car well enough to take it down the freeway and
back.

The e-mailed advice about coughing during a heart attack leaves the
impression the "cough CPR" technique is endorsed by Rochester General
Hospital and Mended Hearts. Rochester General had nothing to do with
any of this - how its name came to be attached to this message is a
mystery. See their denial of having endorsed this e-mail.

Mended Hearts (a support group for heart disease patients and their
families) is not nearly so blameless.

Although the text of the e-mailed advice was published in a Mended
Hearts newsletter, the organization has since disavowed it and has a
page on its web site asking readers not to heed the advisory. The piece
on cough CPR found its way into that publication through a blend of too
much enthusiasm and a dearth of fact checking. From there, other
chapters picked it up, spreading the notion to an even wider audience.
Attempts now to distance the organization from it don't begin to undo
the damage done by the piece having been picked up from there.

Darla Bonham, Mended Heart's executive director, has since issued a
statement about cough CPR:
I've received email from people all across the country wanting to know
if it is a valid medically approved procedure. I contacted a scientist
on staff with the American Heart Association Emergency Cardiac Care
division, and he was able to track a possible source of the
information. The information comes from a professional textbook on
emergency cardiac care. This procedure is also known as "cough CPR" and
is used in emergency situations by professional staff. The American
Heart Association does not recommend that the public use this method in
a situation where there is no medical supervision.
Dr. Richard O. Cummins, Seattle's director of emergency cardiac care,
explains that cough CPR raises the pressure in the chest just enough to
maintain some circulation of oxygen-containing blood and help enough
get to the brain to maintain consciousness for a prolonged period. But
cough CPR should be used only by a person about to lose consciousness,
an indication of cardiac arrest, he cautions. It can be dangerous for
someone having a heart attack that does not result in cardiac arrest.
Such a person should call for help and then sit quietly until help
arrives, he says.

In other words, the procedure might be the right thing to attempt or it
might be the very thing that would kill the afflicted depending on
which sort of cardiac crisis is being experienced. Without a doctor
there to judge the situation and, if cough CPR is indicated, to
supervise the rhythmic coughing, the procedure is just far too risky
for a layman to attempt.

Forget about coughing - key to surviving a heart attack is obtaining
proper medical assistance within a very limited window of opportunity.
Once an acute myocardial infarction (AMI) has been diagnosed, speedy
injection of thrombolytic agents to dissolve clots is of the utmost
importance - the more quickly those drugs are delivered, the better
the chances of survival are. It's a race against the clock.

Most patients who present with minor chest pains usually look healthy
and show no signs of a heart attack. Electrocardiogram (ECG) results
tell the story though, so be sure to insist upon one being performed if
you've any doubts at all. Often mild heart attacks are left untreated
and undetected because hospital staff mistake a heart attack for
something more benign because the presenting symptoms are minor.

Rather than risk killing yourself with cough CPR, those experiencing a
heart attack should heed the advice of physicians the world over -
down a couple of Aspirin as an emergency remedy. Doctors believe that
during the early stages of a heart attack, Aspirin - which is known
to prevent blood platelets from sticking together - can prevent a
clot from getting bigger. In 1991 Dr. Michael Vance, president of the
American Board of Emergency Medicine, recommended that people who think
they are having a heart attack should "Call 911, then take an Aspirin."


Oh, and it probably makes a great deal of sense to chew the Aspirin
before swallowing. The sooner it is dispersed by the stomach, the
sooner it gets to where it is needed. During a heart attack, waiting
for the enteric coating surrounding the pill to break down naturally
could be a mistake.

In 1993 The American Heart Association began recommending a 325 mg
Aspirin at the onset of chest pain or other symptoms of a severe heart
attack. That bit of advice is going unheeded, though; a follow-up
report published in 1997 shows as many as 10,000 American lives a year
could be saved if more people who think they're having a heart attack
took an aspirin at the start of chest pains.

In terms of the drama of it, swallowing an Aspirin seems quite a
come-down from bravely trying to induce a perfectly timed coughing fit.
Less flamboyant is better, though; Aspirin saves lives, whereas
coughing might well cost them.

Barbara "from coughing to coffin?" Mikkelson www.snopes.com

Bonnie Patterson wrote:
This is something I feel compelled to forward, again!
Bonnie

Subject: Self CPR if you are having a Heart Attack
Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2006 09:47:29 -0600


From Dan: Although I already knew this, this email was sent to me
from a good friend who recently survived a heart attack. Since he's
been there, done that, I thought it especially important for you to
feel the moment as he described it. Thanks to Jack.
Heart Attack Procedu NOT A JOKE
Tuck this in the back of your brain, sounds like something we should
all be aware of.

Women should also know that not every heart attack symptom is going to
be the left arm hurting.

Be aware of intense pain in the jaw line. You may never have the first
chest pain during the course of a heart attack.

Nausea and intense sweating are also common symptoms. 60% of people
who have a heart attack while they are asleep do not wake up.

The pain in the jaw happened to me and woke me from a sound sleep.

I was one of the fortunate ones. Trust me when I tell you it's pain
unlike anything you've ever experienced before.

Given a choice between natural child birth and a heart attack,
pain-wise; it's much easier to have a baby.

Let's be careful and be aware. The more we know..........

A cardiologist says if everyone who gets this mail sends it to 10
people, you can be sure that we'll save at least one life. Read
this...

It could save your life!!

Let's say it's 6.15pm and you're driving home
(alone of course), after an unusually hard day on the job. You're
tired, upset and frustrated. Suddenly you start experiencing severe
pain in your chest that starts to radiate out into your arm and up
into your jaw. You are only about five miles from the hospital nearest
your home. Unfortunately you don't know if you'll be able to make it
that far. You have been trained in CPR, but the guy that taught the
course did not tell you how to perform it on yourself.

HOW TO SURVIVE A HEART ATTACK WHEN ALONE

Since many people are alone when they suffer a heart attack, without
help, the person whose heart is beating improperly and who begins to
feel faint, has only about 10 seconds left before losing
consciousness.

However, these victims can help themselves by coughing repeatedly and
very vigorously. A deep breath should be taken before each cough, and
the cough must be deep and prolonged, as when producing sputum from
deep inside the chest.

A breath and a cough must be repeated about every two seconds without
let-up until help arrives, or until the heart is felt to be beating
normally again. Deep breaths get oxygen into the lungs and coughing
movements squeeze the heart and keep the blood circulating.

The squeezing pressure on the heart also helps it regain normal
rhythm. In this way, heart attack victims can get to a hospital. Tell
as many other people as possible about this. It could save their
lives!!

BE A FRIEND AND PLEASE SEND THIS ARTICLE TO AS MANY FRIENDS AS
POSSIBLE