Heart Attack Question for Doctors/Medics.

Factual Questions
1

My wife in her helpful way, forwarded me instructions for what to do if you have a heart attack by yourself, so as to keep yourself alive till help arrives.

Basicly the instructions were, you feel the attack coming on, before you pass out, take a deep breath and then cough like you were hacking up, repeat till help arrives. The article says that the deep cough will keep the heart going, so Breath - Cough etc., etc.

Would this work?

2

In a word: No

3

Thank You.

The trouble with these “remedies” is that they sound so plausible, its too easy to take them at face value.

4

IANAD,
However i am a BLS EMT with 30 years of experence.
We were taught the benifits of “Cough CPR” for many years and while this subject isn’t even talked about anymore I would still give it my best in the event I needed to.
The OP states that,

If you do believe you are having a Heart Attack while alone staying calm and recognizing the symptoms and activating your EMS system will greatly increase your survival odds, as denial is very common. (HEY, This can’t happen to me)!
Now you are alone and awaiting the EMS there are several things that you can and should do to improve your chance of survival.
**This is what I would do if it was me **and you can take that for what its worth.
I would after activating 911

  1. Keep calm.
  2. take my nitro if I have it. always sit down before taking this).
  3. I might take 4 baby aspirin’s and chew them up until they are dissolved, or a couple of regular aspirins and do same. (they do not taste very good but will do the same as baby ones).
  4. limit movement to only very nessesary movements and do so very slowly as to not stress myself. (like unlock the door or take above med’s )
    5 resist any trip to the Biff.
  5. take in slow deep breathes through the mouth, and exhale long and slow through the nose. (this fills the lungs fully and exhaling through the nose causes restriction thereby helping to ward off pulmonary edema (in some cases).
  6. I would bring all of this and everything I can think of to my savior Jesus. I like to think that I am ready any time I am called to leave, but being in a condition like this will bring more thoughts into my Prayers;)

Now for the cough CPR.
That would only be used if my heart were to stop. I would have to be palpating my pulse (radial) and if it were possible to associate the loss of pulse and the feeling of loosing consciousness I would do like our old training used to teach,
“Cough Like Your Life Depends On It”
Hey, I might even give it a go at self Precordial thump!
I have given precordial thumps several times over the years and converted ventricular fibrillation and ventricular tachycardia.
Like I said, This is what I might do if it were me! Kind of like my $.05 worth:cool: