Panama City, Fla. -
Get out your best red outfit and plan to wear it on Friday, February 1st, which is National Wear Red Day.
The American Heart Association is encouraging everyone to wear red to bring awareness to heart disease and the effects it has on women. Doctors say more women die from heart disease than breast cancer, and many women ignore the symptoms.
Interventional Cardiologist Dr. Amir Haghighat says, "Classically, everyone thinks of chest pain, so they think of a fist coming into the chest. Really it could be pressure, heaviness located in the chest or often in women between the shoulder blades and up to the jaws or ears."
Dr. Haghighat says women have a tendency to ignore symptoms until it's too late. Betty Kucera did just that. She had been ignoring the warning signs, such as pain in her back and tightness in her chest. Then, she had a heart attack.
Dr. Haghighat opened up Kucera's blocked arteries at Bay Medical-Sacred Heart. Kucera is now doing well and enjoys walking and being outside. She says she is lucky and wants to get the message out to other women.
Kucera says, "Pay attention to how your heart feels, your chest feels, when you're breathing, when you're walking...anything...pay attention."
For more information on women and heart disease, you can go to the following links:
American Heart Association Go Red for Women
Women Heart
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