This could kill you. Really.
An email that has been circulating on the internet since about 1999, and has once again raised it's ugly head. A well-meaning friend of mine just sent it to me, and yes, CC'd it (instead of BCC) to all his friends.
This is another one of the hoaxes I mentioned in another threads that gets spread by well-meaning friends and relatives who forward it to all their friends and relatives.
How serious can that be? Well... This one could kill you.
According to the email, if you are experiencing chest pains that you believe signal the onset of a heart attack, and are not near medical treatment, you should begin coughing repeatedly and deeply, taking deep breaths between each cough, in an attempt to regulate the heartbeat and draw as much oxygen into your blood as possible.
The medical fact is that this could actually stop your heart causing death.
Not all heart attacks even result in unconsciousness. My younger brother actually drove to a hospital and walked into Emergency while having a heart attack (not recommended - call 911).
A mild heart attack can cause dizziness, chest pain (like really, really bad heartburn that cannot be relieved), pain radiating up your arm and into your jaw, shortness of breath and weakness.
However, none of this means that your heart has stopped or that it's going to stop. In my brother's case, an artery to one area of his heart was partially blocked, so the muscle was starving for oxygen. It hurt like the dickens, but the rest of the heart was still working fine.
What doctors almost universally recommend for these symptoms is that you immediately chew (do not swallow whole) an aspirin and immediately seek medical attention. The aspirin helps keep clotting to a minimum and helps the blood to flow better.
The idea of "coughing CPR" is an experimental procedure being tested by trained professionals for getting the heart going just before the patient blacks out. In other words, they are testing it for use on patients whose hearts have basically stopped working, and only under highly trained professional supervision. It is being used after medical attention has arrived, not before.
Read the whole article, and if you want to pass on some real and serious medical truth to your friends and family, send them the Snopes link.
Although a lot of people have lost faith in the medical establishment over the years, they are still your first line of defense for serious, life-threatening illnesses.
Paramedics, who are the folks who arrive when you call an ambulance, are absolute masters at getting a heart going again and if there is any possibility, at all, getting you to the hospital alive, where you can be stabilized. The reality is, no matter what people may think about medical expertise in the Western world, there are two things our doctors are very good at: Putting badly injured people back together, and keeping heart patients alive.
While there are many wellness programs, products and folk health remedies that seem like reasonable things to try, they should only be used by those who have serious health issues under the supervision of a health care professional, like a medical doctor, naturopath or nurse.
Medical professionals may not always be able to offer you a cure, but they generally have a really good idea of what can kill you! This folk tale about the coughing cure for heart attack COULD kill you.