Re: [pyrnet] Strokes and heart attacks.

[Julie Johnston <raven4luck@adelphia.net>]

A heart attack or myocardial infarction is often caused by an embolism or
blood clot that is not able to pass through the arteries that supply blood
to the heart.  This could be due to many things but a lot of them happen
when plaque collects on the insides of the arteries and makes the vessel
smaller in diameter.  The clot then hits this tight spot and dams off the
blood.  This is a heart attack - the heart is not being fed oxygen.  There
are 3 main vessels that feed the heart and it could be one or all that have
narrowed vessels and are in danger of heart attack.

Congestive heart failure is more of a heart disease like Linda mentioned in
her post.  The heart isn't able to pump adequately anymore so there is a
buildup of fluid in the body that can lead to heart failure and death.  Your
sheltie/poodle's heart probably just couldn't pump hard enough any more so
in a sense he was starving for oxygen throughout his body.

I'm trying to put this in as few words as possible but there are many other
factors that we humans get heart attacks from and dogs too of which I'm not
familiar.  I'm a former CCU (Coronary care) nurse so I took care of a lot of
heart attack victims and post-op bypass surgery patients. Of course there is
so much more about the heart and if you're interested you might get an
anatomy book and read about the workings and diseases of the heart - it's
really quite fascinating.

Julie 
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 Well, don't that beat the mousy band.
 "The Green Mile"

 http://homepage.mac.com/raven4luck/




> From: "Stephanie Whitney" <srwhitney1@earthlink.net>
> Reply-To: pyrnet-l@pyrnet.org
> Date: Sat, 9 Feb 2002 19:0:54 -0500
> To: pyrnet-l@pyrnet.org
> Subject: Re: [pyrnet] Strokes and heart attacks.
> 
>> 
>> I had a dog that died of a stroke.  She died of an embolism in the brain
>> which is a sort of stroke.
> 
> My Wolfhound's father died last January (at almost 9 which is great for a
> Wolfhound.)  The woman (from Belgium) who told me about it said that it was
> an "embola" and caused him to be completely paralyzed.  My vet said that it
> was a kind of stroke.
> 
> What dogs do not have is
>> heart attacks as we humans think of heart attacks.  They do not have
>> myocardial infarctions.  When dogs die of heart problems it is most always
>> due to some sort of disease or, more commonly, a heart defect.
>> 
> 
> Please clarify.  My sheltie/poodle mix had congestive heart failure.  The
> morning he died, we found him face and chest pressed to the floor.  Hard to
> explain what it looked like but we were sure that he was having a heart
> attack.  He died before we got him to the emergency vet.  His heart didn't
> just stop.  It appeared to be a violent sort of event.
> 
> --- Stephanie, Ciaran, Anais & Maggie
> --- srwhitney1@earthlink.net
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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