'I missed my eight heart attacks '

By Jane Elliott
BBC News health Online

Evelyn had eight heart attacks

Evelyn Dytche worked with the pioneering transplant surgeon Dr Christian Barnard - but she still missed the symptoms of the heart disease which almost killed her.

The former nurse is proof that even professionals with long experience of coronary illness can be oblivious to their own failing organ.

When at last Evelyn had her own heart transplant, doctors told her that scarring showed that she had had no fewer than eight heart attacks.

"I'm a nurse, yet I did not associate my symptoms with heart disease," Evelyn said.

Rates

"Nor did I connect them with the fact that there was a history of serious heart disease in my family."

The former nurse believes she is typical of women who ignore the danger signs, even though one in three women are killed by heart and circulatory disease and coronary heart disease kills four times as many women than breast cancer.

I had eight heart attacks, but I had no idea Evelyn Dytche

When Evelyn's problems started they were unspecific - heartburn, tiredness and aches.

"I was putting on weight, which I found later was fluid retention and I had a general malaise.

"I got increasingly tired and got heavy aches up my neck and into my ear.

"I thought it was flu, and I felt as if I had something in my throat all the time.

"I had no sense of having any heart problems, no pains down my side and no angina.

"I had eight heart attacks, but I had no idea.

"It never crossed my mind. I didn't get ill."

Bug

She gradually deteriorated and the doctor at the benefits agency, where she worked as a nurse, suggested she went to her GP.

She was referred for a quadruple heart bypass, but Evelyn, 56, from Plymouth, said this left her feeling no better.

"I did not feel 100%. They realised it had just bought me time, although they did not say so."

She contracted the hospital acquired superbug MRSA (Methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus infection) and was taken to Harefield Hospital after her condition deteriorated.

There, doctors diagnosed cardiomyopathy and told Evelyn she would need a heart transplant.

She was on the waiting list for 11 months before a new heart was found for her.

Since the operation eight years ago she has not looked back.

"It was great. I was just so well. I have had a new lease of life."

Sport

She added: "I have a new heart and I have got to nurture it.

"Someone else nurtured it for 24 years, so I must look after it."

Always fit and active, Evelyn plays golf and even played badminton in the transplant games.

But she said her own experience had shown her that everyone could be susceptible to heart disease, not just men.

"Heart disease is a whole new ball-game. It affects everyone from babies to the elderly - it does not differentiate with age at all.

June Davison, a cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, said one in six women and one in five men would die from heart problems, but that despite this many women still thought they were exempt.

"The person with heart disease is always portrayed as a white male, but there are an increasing number of women having problems."

She said that, up until the menopause, the female hormones offered women some protection, but said women should be protecting themselves by stopping smoking, taking more exercise, healthy eating and watching their weight.

And she said that because many women were not aware of the risks they were missing the symptoms.

"Women are less likely to get the well known symptoms of a heart attack, the crushing chest pains, the pains going down the arms.

"They are more likely to get an ache, indigestion and feel sick.

"It makes it harder to recognise."