Fitness Files: Double check emailed medical advice

I’d spent the morning on a glorious hike in Limestone Canyon Nature Preserve, led by volunteers from the Irvine Nature Conservancy, and got around to emails late.

The one from Francie, an intelligent former teacher who has credibility with me, was titled “Do CPR on yourself.” The email told me to respond to chest pain by coughing repeatedly and vigorously and breathing deeply between coughs to get oxygen into the lungs to squeeze the heart and keep blood circulating. The email finished by exhorting me to save lives by sending it to others.

My dad had a quadruple bypass, so I wanted to waste no time in forwarding the email to my brother, sister, their mates and my own husband.

About to hit “send,” I hesitated. Maybe the memory of my “smart guy” brother-in-law’s dismissive attitude toward “junk science” intruded. He spent years in post doctoral studies of DNA and thinks he knows more than anybody, which he does.

Yanking back my send reflex, I searched “doing CPR on yourself” in Google.

Whoops.

The American Heart Assn.’s Dec. 10, 2014, article opens by saying that the group does not endorse “‘cough CPA,’ a procedure widely publicized on the Internet.” Snopes.com agrees with the heart association that the email advice “could potentially be harmful to someone experiencing a heart attack.”

Snopes says cough CPR is an actual procedure, only to be used under the direction of medical personnel who understand the type of cardiac arrest a patient is experiencing and the specific cough rhythm to employ. Without trained personnel, coughing could “turn a mild heart attack into a fatal one,” it says.

OK, jettison the coughing cure. But what should we do if we suspect heart problems?

Chew on an aspirin. And if you are home and conscious when you suspect a cardiac problem, dial 911 as you chew an aspirin.

Snopes directs readers to the American Heart Assn.’s recommendation to get a 325 mg. aspirin tablet dispersed into the stomach as quickly as possible by chewing it. Aspirin is known to prevent blood platelets from sticking together and a clot from getting bigger, it says. It notes a follow-up study that found that people are not taking aspirin-chewing advice and that because of this as many as 10,000 lives are lost a year.

A 2015 report in the Emergency Medicine Journal cautioned that in the U.S. only about half of the paramedics administer an aspirin dose on the way to the hospital.

Also, demand an electrocardiogram. Many people show no recognizable signs of heart trouble and yet may be having mild heart attacks.

Judith Graham of The New York Times blog newoldage warns that “silent heart attacks” with unrecognizable symptoms are more common than attention-grabbing heart attacks and yet are “equally deadly.” This is especially true for older people.

So what are the distinct and less obvious signs of a heart attack?

I’ll start with a disclaimer: A thorough list of symptoms needs a lengthy article. Besides, indications differ by gender, and many symptoms could be heart trouble or other ailments.

I hope the following shortened list of “12 Heart Symptoms Never to Ignore” from David Freeman’s Web MD article encourages readers to read more on the subject.

Heart trouble warnings include anxiety, chest discomfort, persistent cough, dizziness, unusual fatigue, nausea, pain in the abdomen, rapid or irregular pulse, shortness of breath, sweating, swelling of feet and ankles, and severe unexplained weakness.

My family won’t get the cough CPR email, and I’ll let Francie know about these findings. Today’s Fitness Files took me from a well-meaning but misleading email to an exploration of heart attacks.

Beware of medical advice arriving by email. Even clear, seemingly revolutionary messages need back-up research from responsible institutions.

Weight control and exercise along with stress relief are the main behaviors to preventing a heart attack. So lace up your shoes and join the Irvine Nature Conservancy guides for free hikes across beautiful Orange County backcountry. Springtime is the best time to get on the trail.

Newport Beach resident CARRIE LUGER SLAYBACK is a retired teacher who ran the Los Angeles Marathon at age 70, winning first place in her age group. Her blog is lazyracer@blogspot.com.