Superfit gym-goer shares symptoms he experienced before rare 'widowmaker' heart attack at 32
A superfit man has said that going too hard at the gym 'nearly killed him' after he suffered two notorious 'widowmaker' heart attacks that only 10 per cent of people survive.
Ryan Mickleburgh was 32 and training for four marathons when he suffered a double heart attack during a gym class despite being in good physical shape and having a healthy diet.
A chef by trade, Ryan was in condition to be lifting up to 100kg, and most would have thought him healthy, but he admitted he'd been 'shrugging off' symptoms including numbness and chest pains for months before his double heart attack.
Having ignored those symptoms for months, he ended up in a gym class on 17 March, where he felt serious pain and saw his heart rate climb to incredibly high levels. Once he got home, he realised he was 'in trouble'.
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His mum drove him to the hospital, and on the journey, he was 'scared he was dying' as he couldn't stay awake. Once they made it there, he had another heart attack, where his heart rate hit 225bpm.
Fortunately, he survived and was told he'd had two 'widowmaker' heart attacks, which involve a complete blockage of the left anterior descending artery.
Ryan, now 33, said: "I started going to the gym around the age of 18, but over the last two or three years, my fitness has really stepped up.
"I was doing Hyrox and functional fitness events - and training for four marathons this year.
"I was running up to 75k a week, plus three or four days of weight training, lifting up to 100kg on the barbell. I was burning the candle at both ends."
He said he ignored months of symptoms and 'put it down to the gym', getting massages to try and sort things out, but it just moved the pain elsewhere.
"I kept getting numbness in the left side of my body, but I thought it was just a trapped nerve - I put it down to the gym, it was happening consistently for 2-3 months before," he said of what he was feeling in the months before his heart attack.
Ryan said he felt a tightness in his chest after he tried doing a burpee during the gym class, with him checking his watch, which told him his heart rate was up to 195bpm.
He said he 'felt fine' after having a rest, but on the drive home, he felt 'pain in the left side of my jaw and my arm', then at home he broke out in a cold sweat and called his mum, who drove him to Royal Bolton Hospital.
"It was scary. I knew I was dying then," he said of the journey to the hospital.
His second heart attack came an hour and a half after the first one, and he could feel the same symptoms as he told his mum, 'get a doctor, I'm having another heart attack'.
They took him to Wythenshawe General Hospital for an emergency thrombectomy to remove the blood clot in his heart, and doctors discovered he had something called a Patent Foramen Ovale (PFO), which is known as a 'hole in the heart'.
As many as one in five Brits could have a PFO, though they are normally harmless.
Ryan said he was 'grieving' for the person he used to be, and his near-death experience has made him decide to do more 'slow living' with him connecting 'with friends and family a lot more' and turning down the intensity of his training.
He said: "You appreciate life a lot more when you've been close to death. Anything that I do, I'll have to report my underlying health condition. In a sense it's like you're grieving for the person you used to be."
He's been warning people, young men especially, about the danger of trying to 'be invincible' and was surprised at the number of people who'd got in touch to say they'd had a heart attack at a young age.
"Young men are taught to push through everything - pain, stress at work or home, exhaustion. I was like most young men - I thought I was invincible," Ryan explained.
"I shrugged off the symptoms and put it down to tiredness and fatigue, but they're warning signs. The 'grindset' nearly killed me.
"If I knew there was something available like Cardiac Research in the Young, I probably would've checked and they would've found this hole in my heart straight away."
Topics: Health, Mental Health, UK News
Joe Harker