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RE: Aspirin - 11/14/2009 9:17:10 AM

rockspider

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First time i heard that aspirin should help in acute heart attack.
It does however have a bloodthinning effect so using it if yoou are in a risc group is fine.
The most crucial thing about an acute heart attack is effective first aid treatment. It consist of CPR cardiac pulponary resuscitation and is really a compression of the chest which squeses the heart together. The other is mouth to mouth simultaneus with the cpr. The tecniques can be learned in a course lasting half a day. For my own case i was given it as part of my electricians education, again as part of a sailing course and again for scubadiving course. Here it is for free and given in the socalled VUC which is adult education centres. In South Africa it was a multitude of services offered it, Like the Sct James ambulance. Ask your local first aid clinic, firedepartment or similar. At least they know where it is given.
The first 5 minutes is crucial for the succesful recovery of the patient. If the tecnique is aplied in that period the full recovery rate is over 90 %. Anything beyond 15 minutes and death is normally the case. The tecnique is to bring oxygen to the brain while giving the paramedics time to arrive. It is seldom that it actually restarts the heart pumping. That is a job for the paramedics. It can be applied by just one person alternating pumping and mouth to mouth but obviously better with 2 people doing each their thing.
It is really sad that so many people die, just because of the general lazyness of the public in general. It takes a mere afternoon and it could be you spouse, parent, child, coworker or future friend for life whose life you save. Give your partner a kick in the direction of the course and it might even be your own.

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RE: Aspirin - 11/14/2009 9:20:19 AM

pahunkboy

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From: Central Pennsylvania
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Maybe the act of figiting for the pill jarred the blockage just past the critical point.

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Post #: 22

RE: Aspirin - 11/14/2009 11:22:11 AM

sappatoti

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Joined: 10/30/2006
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quote:

ORIGINAL: rockspider
First time i heard that aspirin should help in acute heart attack. ...

Some of the local doctors' ads on various media have been including this tip, as it were, in their copy as a sort of a public service.

Also, a year ago when I was taken by ambulance to the hospital in the middle of the night for what they thought was a heart attack (it was a gall bladder attack), the first thing the ambulance personnel did was to give me an aspirin to take before they started hooking up their gear. When I arrived at the ER and was questioned by the doc, his first question to me was if the ambulance personnel administered an aspirin and when I answered they had, he acknowledged with "Good."

The OP is a living testament to the fact that aspirin taken while having a heart attack works. The poster above me is correct that it should not be the only means of first aid for a victim but based upon my experiences and what I keep hearing and reading in local doctors' ads, taking the aspirin is another tool towards stopping the attack.

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RE: Aspirin - 11/14/2009 11:32:53 AM

Viridana

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quote:

ORIGINAL: rockspider

First time i heard that aspirin should help in acute heart attack.

At my hospital, a trilogy of blood thinners, MKP (magnyl/aspirin + klexane + plavix) is given to every patient suspected of acute myocardial infarct as a rule. It is done to prevent further coagulation in the acute phase. So aspirin is, and has been for a long time, a key player in the treatment of acute MI.

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Post #: 24

RE: Aspirin - 11/14/2009 11:48:55 AM

Viridana

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quote:

ORIGINAL: sappatoti

I need the daily aspirin for stroke prevention, not heart attack prevention. I have a long history of having TIAs/strokes, the source of which has baffled every doc I've seen (and there have been at least a dozen of them throughout my life) so this aspirin regimen is the latest attempt at controlling the events. Since starting on it, the number of TIA/stroke events have been reduced about 40% which means I'm a lot closer to living a so-called normal life than I had been prior to the asiprin prescription. Thus far, there have been no side effects noticed in taking all that aspirin.

At first, I was on Plavix and a lower dose of aspirin, but blood chemistry came back askew that appears to have been caused by the Plavix so it was dropped in favor of the higher dose of aspirin. My blood chemistry is back to normal, so the docs assume I was having some sort of reaction to the Plavix. They are happy to keep me on the aspirin only treatment for now as my blood work has been normal since stopping the Plavix.

Anticoagulation therapy is really the same regardless if you're taking it because of stroke risk or myocardial infarct risk. There are really four aspects that one looks upon when choosing a drug:
effect (is the drug potent?),
side effects (are there many, and/or serious?),
price (can patients actually afford it?)
and compliency (a patient is more likely to comply to a regime of one daily dose than 3 daily doses etc.)

There are really only four groups used to day in anticoagulation therapy (warfarin, aspirin, heparin (light molecular weight or regular) and plavix) and each have their benefits and faults. So when guidelines and protocols are made they are based upon average values of statistics for that hospital (or district or whatever large area normally used) and as such they are not set in stone, every patient is different. Side effects are very common from high doses of aspirin, klexane (light weight heparin) and heparin are not easily given (shots and infusion respectively), plavix is irreversible and not very controlable anticoagulation and warfarin has a narrow therapeutic window so it is very easy to overdose. So usual regime, at least at my hospital, is aspirin in low doses but if more potent anticoagulation is needed then you go on warfarin. Heparin, klexane and plavix are really only given for special reasons in the hospital or if the patient cannot for some reason take aspirin or warfarin.

I'm glad the high dose aspirin works for you. That all that matters. I hope you stay healthy and happy for a long time