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Hi! My grandfather has many different things wrong with him. He has heart disease and has had 3 heart attacks. He also has minor depression and diabetes. My 18 year old cousin found out she is pregnant and has to tell him. Is there any way that the shock from this news could seriously hurt him medically?
Greetings! Thank you for your question and welcome to HCM. I understand your concern.
Indeed, stress can trigger changes in the heart muscle and coronary arteries. Now, if this heart attacks you mentioned, were treated with stents and stents are doing good, there is a slight chance that he will suffer another heart attack just from receiving a bad news. Stress is a risk factor as added factor to main factors, but it is known that can cause significant spasms to all the arteries in the human body. Until now, my opinion and recommendation is that, knowing him, you should be able to find the easiest way to not generate stress to him. Although, I remain in my opinion that there is only a slight chance that stress can produce a new acute myocardial infarction.
It would also be very helpful if you had provided more information and insight about the three heart attacks that he suffered. It is only the hormones that are flushed in the system during an acute stress episode that can produce coronary artery spasms.
Ya , any condition that is leading to increase stress level, will increase the demand of heart for oxygen. Anyways heart disease are on lower side of cardiac output. So any stressful event might lead to myocardial ischemia.thus patient may have risk of having again heart attack
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Can Shock From News Hurt A Heart Patient?
Greetings! Thank you for your question and welcome to HCM. I understand your concern. Indeed, stress can trigger changes in the heart muscle and coronary arteries. Now, if this heart attacks you mentioned, were treated with stents and stents are doing good, there is a slight chance that he will suffer another heart attack just from receiving a bad news. Stress is a risk factor as added factor to main factors, but it is known that can cause significant spasms to all the arteries in the human body. Until now, my opinion and recommendation is that, knowing him, you should be able to find the easiest way to not generate stress to him. Although, I remain in my opinion that there is only a slight chance that stress can produce a new acute myocardial infarction. It would also be very helpful if you had provided more information and insight about the three heart attacks that he suffered. It is only the hormones that are flushed in the system during an acute stress episode that can produce coronary artery spasms. I hope this has been of help. My regards, Dr. Meriton