Although she initially thought it was indigestion, she soon realised the feeling was in her chest and was getting stronger. While speaking to a friend on the hands free phone in the car, Carol realised she couldn’t follow what her friend was saying. She pulled over and waited while her friend dialled 999.
Carol started having severe chest pains, and felt clammy and disoriented. She believed she was having a heart attack, but when the ambulance arrived the paramedic asked Carol to walk from her car to the ambulance. “To me that meant they didn’t think I was having a heart attack,” she says. “I think they thought I was panicking; of course I was anxious but it wasn’t just that.”
Initially, the doctors wrongly thought that the blood supply to Carol’s heart was only partly blocked, so she wasn’t treated as an emergency.
She needed to be transferred to a heart unit for treatment, but a shortage of beds there meant Carol waited 12 hours until she was finally transferred at 4am the following morning. There, she was diagnosed as having had a ‘missed STEMI’, meaning that her heart attack had been the most serious type, where an artery supplying the heart is completely blocked, but doctors had missed the window to protect her heart from serious damage. At 9am she had a stent fitted to restore blood flow to her heart. Carol has heart failure as a result of her heart attack.
“I felt I’d been badly let down,” says Carol. “Being a younger woman and slim meant I wasn’t the stereotypical heart attack patient and I think that played a role in how I was treated.”
Carol, now 50, lives in Leicester with her husband and two teenage sons. She returned to work six weeks after her heart attack, which happened in January 2018, but with substantially reduced hours.
Her experience has changed the way she thinks as a doctor, especially when she sees female patients with symptoms like hers. “People don’t think they could have a heart attack – I didn’t , because I didn’t have the usual risk factors. I do everything to make sure people get the checks they should, and even if it turns out to be nothing, I make sure they have the information and support they need to reduce their risk through a healthier lifestyle.
“Women have thanked me for sharing my story and said it took me having a heart attack to encourage them to get their NHS health checks and to think differently about their lifestyles.”
In January 2018, Carol Ighofose was driving home from her work as a GP when she started to feel unwell. Doctors initially thought that the blood supply to Carol’s heart was only partly blocked, so her case wasn’t treated as an emergency. “I felt I’d been badly let down,” says Carol. “Being a younger woman and slim meant I wasn’t the stereotypical heart attack patient and I think that played a role in how I was treated.”
Carol, now 50, lives in Leicester with her husband and two teenage sons. e returned to work six weeks after her heart attack, but with significantly reduced hours. She believes stress and not sleeping enough may have contributed to her heart attack.
“The conventional risk factors didn’t apply to me: I was a normal weight and I exercised every day before work,” she explains. “But working night shifts, studying and looking after two young children meant I learned to get by on four hours’ sleep,” she explains.
Carol also has a family history of diabetes and high blood pressure, and had gestational hypertension (high blood pressure during pregnancy), which increases the risk of developing heart and circulatory disease later on.
Her experience has changed the way she thinks as a doctor, especially when she sees female patients with symptoms like hers.
“People don’t think they could have a heart attack – I didn’t think it would happen to me,” she says. “I do everything to make sure people get the treatment they should get, and even if it turns out to be nothing to worry about, I make sure they have the information and support they need to reduce their risk through a healthier lifestyle.”
Carol gives talks about her experience to raise awareness of heart disease and to encourage people to take action to reduce their risk.
“Women have thanked me for having my heart attack; they say it has encouraged them to get their NHS health checks and to think differently about their lifestyles.”
