Keeping Your Heart Happy: Broken Heart Syndrome

Margaret “Peggy” Wilkins makes her living as a licensed realtor, but she makes a life by helping people find their dream homes. She lives in a 55 and older complex. In fact, she sold some of her neighbors their homes. Theirs is a tightly knit, older community where hearts remain young in spirit, especially Peggy’s.

However, Hurricane Ian jolted her heart, like everyone else’s. For two days, she hunkered down in her home with Buzzi, her 7-year-old Morkie, emerging after the storm had passed. What she saw in her community broke her heart.

“I was feeling very emotional about it,” Peggy recalls. “I felt responsible because I had sold them their properties. I was so upset.”

While helping with clean-up efforts in the community, the 63-year-old New York native found herself increasingly gasping for breath. Maybe it was because she was unable to stop crying, she thought. Or, maybe it was an asthma symptom triggered by irritants stirred into the air by the hurricane. However, that didn’t seem likely. She hadn’t had an asthma bout in decades.

Her chest also began to hurt from her efforts to breathe, Peggy noticed. Alarmed, she visited the emergency room at Lee Health's Cape Coral Hospital, where she underwent a series of diagnostic tests, including an echocardiogram, to check her heart function.

She wasn’t aware of it, but Peggy’s shortness of breath and chest pain were symptoms of takotsubo cardiomyopathy, says Dr. Randall Buss, a cardiothoracic surgeon with Lee Physician Group.

“Takotsubo cardiomyopathy is a temporary heart condition with symptoms like those of a heart attack,” explains Dr. Buss, board-certified in both thoracic surgery and general surgery. “Also called stress-induced cardiomyopathy, takotsubo cardiomyopathy occurs when a sudden physical or emotional stressor rapidly weakens the heart muscle. In Peggy’s case, those stressors were likely Hurricane Ian and helping her friends and neighbors but not taking care of herself.”

Takotsubo cardiomyopathy is also called Broken Heart Syndrome.

Because of her unusual diagnosis and acute condition, Peggy was admitted as a high-risk case to HealthPark Medical Center for overnight observation and further evaluation.

Finding Blockages

Lee Health's HealthPark Medical Center, recognized four years running as one of the Top 50 Cardiovascular Hospitals in the country by IBM Watson, is one of only two interventional emergency centers in the area and the only accredited Chest Pain Center in our five-county region.

Peggy’s son Mike, 43, and daughter Annie, 45, would soon meet her at the facility. She was in the right place, she recalls.

“I felt like I was in such wonderful hands,” she says. “Every person showed love and respect and beautiful care.

“I’d lost my husband only three years ago,” she added. “I didn’t want to lose my kids. As soon as Dr. Buss came into my room, I knew I was going to be okay. I knew he had this.”

Dr. Buss says Peggy underwent a catheterization procedure that revealed blockages in all arteries to her heart. The South Fort Myers resident would require three coronary artery bypass surgeries. But first, the takotsubo cardiomyopathy had to resolve, which it did in a few days’ time.

Peggy spent 10 days in the hospital. According to Dr. Buss, her post-surgical recovery has been smooth. She was discharged four days after her surgery with a heart-to-heart suggestion that she try to care more about herself before helping others.

It sounds like she’s been taking his advice to heart. Peggy reports she’s “feeling better every day,” thanks to long walks with Buzzi twice daily.

Heart Disease: A Battle of the Sexes: Women feel symptoms differently than men, so be sure you recognize the warning signs.

Dr. Buss shares these tips to keep your heart happy:

• Have a primary care physician and see them regularly.
• If you start to have symptoms of chest discomfort like Peggy or shortness of breath, don't push it off.  “Don't say, ‘Oh, I’ll feel better the next day’ because sometimes there isn't a next day. So go to the ER or call your primary doctor immediately to get diagnosed,” Dr. Buss advises. “The sooner we can find out what’s going on, the sooner we can correct these conditions so you can live many more happy years.”
• The key is to have good medical care continuously. “We want to catch you before you have a significant heart event from which you can’t fully recover. We want to get to you while your heart still has good function.”

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Shipley Cardiothoracic Center, located within HealthPark Medical Center, is enhancing cardiac care for women with its Women’s Cardiac Surgery Center. 

Great news: Lee Health is now an alliance member of Cleveland Clinic’s Heart, Vascular & Thoracic Institute.