Bubbletrubble
Contributor
@ScubaNurse758: Would you describe the heart of a patient who experienced MI as "healthy"? Ejection fraction (EF) may not be different from baseline, but diagnosis of non-ST-segment elevation MI (NSTEMI) implies an incomplete blockage of a coronary artery and that a small portion of the heart muscle is damaged. Perhaps my ignorance here is showing since my experience with cardiac patients, thus far, is somewhat limited.Many people that have MI, especially NSTEMI, will not have any noticable heart damage. Their EF will remain normal and for all intents and purposes the heart returns to the baseline it was at before the insult. Also, the saltwater aspiration and MI probably were not a cause and effect situation. I would guess that probably the MI was a result of the strenuous swim against current and THEN came the aspiration secondary to exhaustion from the swim. Just a guess.
Even in instances of NSTEMI, one might see any number of EKG abnormalities: ST wave depression, T wave abnormalities, poor R-wave progression, afib, PVCs, etc. Assuming NSTEMI, an EKG might still reveal conditions which may have precipitated the coronary event -- valvular disease, arrhythmia, LVH.
The OP mentioned that she was cathed. I would think that coronary angiography would have been performed, which may have revealed evidence of CAD. (The OP's follow-up post seems to indicate that she has no CAD.)
Even if we assume the OP is saying that her heart function remains at/near 100%, evidence of any of the above conditions would be inconsistent with the label of a "healthy heart."
In a later post, the OP states that her heart condition was diagnosed by "EKG and cardiac enzymes and confirmed with echo and cath tests." Whether the incident was STEMI or NSTEMI, the confirmation by "echo and cath" implies that abnormal heart function persists. In my mind, that's not consistent at all with the label of a "healthy heart." Perhaps I'm misunderstanding something or maybe the OP misunderstood what she was told by her treatment team.
Your explanation of the MI and saltwater aspiration being two separate insults is certainly possible. The OP makes it sound like the MI was a consequence of the saltwater aspiration. In a follow-up post she states: "The aspiration of sea water reduced the oygen [sic] to my heart. The lack of oxygen to the heart cause the heart attack."
Her explanation still sounds rather curious to me without a diagnosis of saltwater aspiration syndrome (SAS) followed by progression to ARDS (which is uncommon in SAS).
I'm going to guess that in the absence of any clear cause of the heart attack, the treatment team was speculating on precipitating factors and settled on "aspiration of saltwater" based entirely on the patient history. Perhaps the team is classifying the incident as a "near drowning." Hypoxia secondary to saltwater aspiration can certainly occur but I would think it very, very, very unlikely to contribute to MI in the absence of any previous heart disease (as indicated by the OP in a subsequent post).
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