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Comment by ayushchat | Hacker News Reader

Wow, I hope you're alright now. Can you share a bit more about what may be the reason for the heart attack? Your diet or fitness habits?

I'm in my mid thirties, I think I'm fit, but constantly hear of "fit" people suffering heart attacks at this age.

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Sure, the heart attack itself was caused by a thrombosis that fully blocked the left coronary artery. It actually came on whilst I was doing my morning swim. Results wise I got lucky and got fixed with a stent early enough that there doesn’t seem to be any (noticeable) damage to the heart. Right now the doctors don’t know precisely why I got this clot. Other than having it I’m in good health with no signs of chronic disease associated with heart attacks. They also tested for genetic clotting conditions and I’m waiting on hearing back about immune system issues. The other suspected issue could be a undiagnosed hole between the two sides of my heart.

Fitness wise I was swimming five days a week at a pretty good intensity. I’m pretty competitive so tend to push myself and as a sense of exertion my breast stroke pace is faster than most people’s freestyle. But this is just a local pool not some crazy swimming club. On top of that I make sure I do all the usual things like getting up from my desk regularly, take a walk at lunchtime and I have two young kids so usually we are going on hikes and bike rides at the weekend.

I don’t smoke, I eat reasonably healthily, I don’t drink loads of coffee, I work from home, my job isn’t too stressful and so on.

The only related history is that my father had a TIA aka “mini-stroke” at a similar age.

I’m back at home now but was in hospital for five days. So far recovery seems to be going well, lots of resting with a couple of walks each day that get progressively longer. It’ll still be a few weeks before I’ll be doing anything more. Emotionally I still feel very raw, much more so than any of the other times I’ve knowingly come close to dying.

I basically bottom out the risk factors for heart attack yet here we are.

Is there any chance you were exposed to COVID at any point? I know there’s an association between COVID-19 and clotting events (even for otherwise asymptomatic individuals)!

The heart damage stories have been debunked* (but don’t expect the media to cover that)

* https://www.statnews.com/2021/05/14/setting-the-record-strai...

It seem so, lets see if that study is confirmed. We can't believe anything COVID related that has not been reproduced independently many times by independent groups, there is too much fear and convictions.

Read the link. There have been numerous studies.

> Over the ensuing months, numerous research groups published studies that refuted the early concerns and provided reassuring evidence that SARS-CoV-2 had no extra toxicity to the heart

I did read it. We need to wait and see if their meta-study approach is sound and didnt introduce bias. And from what I understand they didnt study a lot of the people that got really bad covid.

{Anecdote warning}

I have clotting issues. Genetic problem. Factor 5 + autoimmune.

I get a lot of symptoms if I lapse on blood thinners, so can easily tell when I’m having a mini stroke.

Covid dramatically worsened the situation. That was six months ago.

Before I could go off blood thinners for 3 days before symptoms started.

Now if I’m late by six hours problems start.

It’s possible although my wife has been tested weekly for her job so maybe unlikely.

Alternatively exposure to some COVID vaccines seems to also increase risk of clotting

Yeah my doctor says I’m only to have the Pfizer vaccine now.

Hope you recover well!

Just concerning the breast stroke: I started to go swimming half a year ago and for lack of technique I did breast stroke instead of freestyle. After a couple months of 30min of swimming every day, I suddenly got terrible back pain during swimming (due the the backwards bent spine I guess). I started to learn freestyle and did not encounter the problems again. Just yesterday I did some breast stroke and I almost instantly got the pain again. Did you ever encounter this kind of back pain, or is it only my physiology?

I’d say you’re almost certainly not swimming the stroke correctly. You can definitely get into the habit of overarching your back and neck to get your head out of the water. I’d get someone who knows what they’re doing to check your stroke.

Switching up stroke is generally a good idea though.

Breast stroke gave me really bad lower back pain. I surprised to hear that’s a common thing. I thought it was just me.

Thank you for sharing your story, it helps a lot. Hope you come back to full fitness soon and resume your regular swims :)

Thanks. :)

Your father having a mini stroke at a very young age does sound to be like a pretty important risk factor. Family history is super important in these situations.

Definitely my point was rather that after investigation there is still no clear answer as to what caused the clot and/or what that familial problem would be. After all familial risk is going to be inherited or through a shared environmental hazard.

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