Just found out soap is alkaline. If you run out of antacids and your acid reflux is really bad, can you eat soap to settle your tummy? This post inspired by eating chalk for acid reflux.
EDIT:
Just found out soap is alkaline. If you run out of antacids and your acid reflux is really bad, can you eat soap to settle your tummy? This post inspired by eating chalk for acid reflux.
EDIT:
If your heartburn lasts more than 24 hours, please, please, PLEASE go see a doctor.
I did not. I fought unrelenting heartburn for 5 days. In fairness, it did start 3 days after Thanksgiving, and I DID have the extra plate of sweet potatoes. Antacids did nothing, Pepto did nothing.
On the 5th day, the burning pain moved into my upper arms, which I did not know was a thing, and in the center of my chest it felt like I had a chunk of rock, pulling down on all my innards.
Advice nurse sent me to the ER, ER used a simple blood test to confirm the heart attack, but by day 5 the damage was done and the only fix was full blown open heart surgery.
Doc explained the heavy feeling was my heart only pumping out 30% of what it should be, and that’s right on the line of walking around, talking to people and no longer walking around, talking to people.
But isn’t heartburn all about stomach acids? How is that related to the heart? After all, these are two completely separate organs.
Heartburn is a type of pain usually caused by acid reflux, but can be mimicked by a heart attack.
Well that’s fucking terrifying
If you’re a woman the symptoms for a heart attack are different than a man’s and are often missed.
Wait, it’s possible to have a heart attack for 5 days? I thought a heart attack means your heart stops and you pass out?
Reading these comments is exposing how little I really know how cardiology. This is what it feels like to be on the first peak of the Dunning-Kruger curve.
A heart attack is a damaging lack of blood flow to the heart. This is very often caused by your heart beating wrong (or not at all) but can have many other causes. It’s also important to note that the heart largely does not receive oxygen from the blood inside it; it has its own set of blood vessels on the outside feeding it. Therefore you can have a heart attack even though the pumping portions are completely clear.
It’s possible for the blood flow to be slowed so far by blockages that your heart starts taking damage, yet still struggles on for five days. Definitely not a common scenario, but it does highlight just how varied and uneven heart attack symptoms are. Which just makes the whole thing that much scarier in my opinion.
That seems to be a common theme in medicine. You have a super common symptom that is usually caused by something completely harmless, but there’s also a non-zero chance that you’re absolutely screwed.
My heart actually did stop in the hospital… after the 2nd heart attack. I was asleep and had no clue until the nurse came in the room.
6AM, wake up, waiting on a stent, fiddling around on my phone. Nurse comes in.
“Were you asleep about an hour ago?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Your heart stopped for 8 seconds.”
“Ummm… thank you? I don’t know how to respond to that.”
Wow. That’s amazing. And terrifying. I hope you’re doing better now.
It’s been a struggle. I got the stent, still having trouble with my heart just stopping randomly. 4 seconds here, 5 seconds there, always when I’m asleep. Docs say it’s not concerning unless it happens when I’m awake, so I have an implanted heart monitor that calls out on my phone if there’s a problem.
There were problems with my meds that made me pass out from low blood pressure. Scared the hell out of the docs one day when I hit 58/47 in their office.
“Honest, I assure you I HAVE blood pressure, I’m sitting here talking to you, right?”
“Yeah, we don’t know how you’re doing that!”
Both are a kind of chest pain. It doesn’t really get felt in a single spot.