Jaw discomfort was sign of heart attack

Lydia Flintoff said she would never have known the discomfort in her jaw was a heart attack. Photo / Stephen Parker

When Lydia Flintoff told extended family she had had a heart attack they laughed - waiting for the punchline.

And it is not just family that find it hard to believe - the active 75-year-old is still shocked that a funny sensation in her jaw was actually a heart attack. It happened less than two months ago.

"It was quite deceiving. I thought that you had a heart attack and you are nearly dead. I had a heart attack and I was nowhere near dead."

Mrs Flintoff was sharing her experience as part of the Heart Foundation's annual Go Red for Women campaign.

On the day of her heart attack Mrs Flintoff woke at 4am with a pain she thought was indigestion. It did not got away and she also had a tingling, uncomfortable sensation around her jaw. She admits she felt a bit "heady" but went to work, although had to sit down for a bit during her shift. On her way home she decided to pop in to her doctor's surgery.

"My pulse was all up the shoot."

Soon she was hooked up to an ECG machine and before she knew it she was being sent to Rotorua Hospital.

"I thought at least I'll be home by 5pm and able to go into work the next morning."

Instead, doctors told her the unusual sensation in her jaw was actually a heart attack and she spent the night in hospital, before being transferred to Waikato Hospital for surgery to have a stent put in and relieve the blockage in her heart.

"They told me I'd had a heart attack and I thought, 'you mean to tell me that thing around my jaw was a heart attack?' I would never have known," she said.

More than 50 New Zealand women die of heart attacks every week. Heart Foundation medical director Gerry Devlin said there was a common misperception in society that heart disease was a "man's disease" and the campaign was dedicated to raising awareness of heart disease in women and getting them to look after their hearts.

He said symptoms of a heart attack could vary between men and women.

"Like men, the most common heart attack symptom for women is chest pain or discomfort. But women are more likely to experience other symptoms, such as discomfort in the upper back, sweating and unusual fatigue."

European women should get their heart checked from the age of 55 but Maori, Pacific and Indo-Asian women and those with known risk factors needed check-ups from the age of 45.