PORT ANGELES — Heart disease is the leading cause of death for women, but it may be difficult for women to spot the signs, say those speaking at the Red, Set Go! Heart Healthy luncheon planned for Friday.
Such well-known symptoms of heart attack as crushing chest pain and pain radiating down the left arm are not necessarily the way women experience this medical emergency. Women’s symptoms often are more varied and subtle than those for men.
But they can be just as deadly.
“About half of women, just like men, will die of heart disease, so there is no less risk,” said Dr. Kara Urnes, medical director for the Olympic Medical Center Heart Center in Sequim.
Chair Karen Rogers’ theme for the luncheon is Know Your Heart.
“If you don’t know how your heart is living in your particular body, you may miss an important symptom,” Rogers said.
“We (women) do not have a male heart attack.”
Both women are among those who will speak at the luncheon, the year’s major fundraiser for the OMC heart center, which also aims to educate women about heart disease.
The luncheon — the 18th annual event held during American Heart Month — will begin at 11:30 a.m. Feb. 28 at the Vern Burton Community Center, 308 E.Fourth St. in Port Angeles.
Tickets are $75 each or $600 for a table of eight for the luncheon, presented by Virginia Mason Franciscan Health and the OMC Foundation. They are available at https://www.omhf.org or by calling the foundation at 360-417-7144.
Also speaking will be Terri Harmon, a longtime donor to the heart center who unexpectedly suffered a heart attack last August. How she managed to interpret her odd symptoms as needing emergency care will be the topic of her survivor’s tale.
“There were pretty strange symptoms,” she said. “They say women have a sixth sense, and I’m beginning to believe that’s true.”
She said that the Red, Set Go! luncheons she attended throughout the years provided information to help her decide that she needed emergency care.
“The little bit I got from each heart luncheon was a lifesaver,” she said.
Rogers, Urnes and Harmon will emphasize that women must educate themselves, get immediate help if they suspect it is necessary and work closely with a doctor.
“If your doctor says you’re just having indigestion and this keeps happening, you need to press your doctor,” Rogers said.
“When you think something isn’t working right, you stay on the doctor to make sure you test. You need to advocate for yourself.
“Women’s heart disease masquerades itself,” Rogers added. “It’s fickle.
“If it feels wrong, get it checked out.”
Urnes said women tend to get coronary heart disease about 10 years later than men do, and that can explain the difference in their symptoms.
“Women get more diffused heart disease, so that multiple vessels are partially blocked,” Urnes said.
“Rather than classic chest pain, women are more likely to get shortness of breath when they exercise or pressure in chest, or pain in the jaw and sometimes in the upper abdomen,” she continued.
“Women who go through child birth often feel much more severe pain,” Urnas said. “So they don’t think of it as being a pain.”
Rogers, in keeping with the theme she is using for the luncheon, will include a book, “A Women’s Guide to Living with Heart Disease” by Carolyn Thomas in the centerpiece auction on each table. Thomas combines documenting her own experience of surviving a heart attack with tips for recognizing symptoms and coping with living with heart disease.
A heart attack, in which the flow of blood to the heart is severely reduced or blocked, usually is caused by a buildup of plaque in the coronary arteries, called atherosclerosis.
Not all circulatory diseases are of this type. Other common diseases include heart arrhythmias and heart valve disease, aortic aneurysm, peripheral artery disease, pulmonary hypertension and cardiomyopathy, among others.
The heart luncheon began with about 50 or 60 attendees at Sunland and since has grown to more than 400 attending luncheons at the Vern Burton center.
This year’s luncheon will raise funds to upgrade equipment at the heart center, which is now doing about 5,000 to 6,000 echocardiograms, 15,000 EKGs and about 1,200 nuclear stress tests each year along with cardiac and pulmonary rehab, Urnes said.
“There has been a huge increase in the amount of heart studies we do per year,” she said.
Rogers served on the Red, Set Go! committee since it began and became chair in 2013. Intimate experience with heart disease has fueled her concern for helping the OMC Heart Center.
“It’s been brought to my awareness how much heart attacks and stroke affect our community,” Rogers said.
“It became very personal to me to make sure we had the best equipment and staff and rehab center in order for people to have a fighting chance.”
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Leah Leach is a former executive editor of Peninsula Daily News.
