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Milwaukee VA takes February health awareness campaign to heart

Chocolate hearts in a heart-shaped dish
Chocolate hearts for Valentine's Day remind us that we need to consider our heart health.

The Valentine’s Day chocolate hearts are probably gone but care for your heart can be a lifelong gift.

February is American Heart Month. This year the office of Women Veterans Health Care is leading the effort to bring awareness of the risks of heart disease and stroke in female Veterans.

The goal of the campaign is to reduce the number of lives lost to heart disease. Veterans, and in particular female Veterans, are encouraged to seek care and work with their health care provider to build a heart health plan. 

To raise awareness, Lyn Rogers, Milwaukee VA Medical Center facility management program specialist and U.S. Army Veteran, took part in the American Heart Association’s Go Red for Women campaign Feb. 4.

 “I wore red for women in remembrance of a dear aunt that I lost to a massive heart attack about five years ago. She had undetected cardiovascular disease.” Rogers said.

Symptoms of a heart attack can be different in women than men, and they are often misunderstood. Heart attack signs for women can be subtle and sometimes confusing.

“I also wore red for a Veteran friend.” Rodgers said.  “While my friend was in Navy basic training, she had episodes of passing out while exercising. Seeing that she was so young, the doctors told her she was simply dehydrated and probably over-exerted herself.”

As the woman’s fainting episodes continued, she also began experiencing chest pains. The symptoms were dismissed as anxiety, but later tests would indicate she had a serious heart defect that left her heart muscle weakened and unable to pump blood normally.

The diagnosis was ventricular tachycardia, a dangerous heart rhythm issue. Doctors implanted a cardioverter defibrillator – the device acts as a pacemaker.

“It’s amazing that she’s alive today; she could have died," Rogers said. "Early detection is important. You can’t just blow it off. You must do further tests and work with doctors to further investigate.

“It’s not just the men who have these heart attacks. It’s women too. We’re living with the disease, and we need to detect it early. We need to know the signs and symptoms and really articulate that,” Rogers said.

“Symptoms for women aren't always that classic elephant-sitting-on-my-chest pain that radiates down your arm. It can be subtle,” said Dr Nicole Lohr, chief of cardiology at the Milwaukee VA Medical Center.

“Maybe I just don't have enough energy to do a standard walk to the car or complete my activities of daily living. Sometimes it just feels like a profound sense of being uncomfortable that you can’t explain – or nausea and vomiting,” she said.

The lack of awareness of these symptoms and that a woman might not necessarily attribute them to her heart health has consequences, such as misunderstanding symptoms or delaying treatment.

“One survey said that women are less likely to dial 911 for themselves as they would for somebody else. They question what if really nothing was wrong. Getting over the stigma of embarrassment and denial are huge,” Lohr said.

Knowledge of your five important heart health numbers can help providers determine your risk for developing cardiovascular disease:

  • Total cholesterol
  • HDL (good) cholesterol
  • Blood pressure
  • Blood sugar
  • Body mass index (BMI) 

Awareness of your risk factors, knowing your heart health numbers and making healthy lifestyle choices can reduce your risks. February Heart Health Month can play a key role in supporting Veterans in both thinking about their heart health and taking those proactive steps to ensure their hearts stay healthy.

“Just yesterday I had a patient who continues to smoke and has a lot of stress. With just some gentle questioning I found out that there was a much deeper explanation as to why they felt it didn't matter if they smoke. Once we could get through that, we made an action plan.” Lohr said.

Online resources such as the ASCVD Risk Estimator Plus put out by The American College of Cardiology https://tools.acc.org/ascvd-risk-estimator-plus/#!/calculate/estimate/ can help frame heart health conversations with your doctor.  The goal is to create a health plan with realistic and achievable goals.

It’s always a good time to talk about heart health but, during February, we can make a concerted effort to make sure all Veterans receive the support they need to keep their hearts strong.

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