You CAN Die of Broken Heart Syndrome

Not really diagnosed and named until 1991 by Dr. Hikaru Sato in Japan, Broken Heart Syndrome has existed for centuries across the world.

Even medical doctors assumed the death was a heart attack but when angiograms became widely available for use in the early 20th century, they showed no arterial blockages. Obviously, something else was going on but the field of medicine is no exception to resistance to new ideas by institutions.

(Academia, science, religion, and social reform are other examples of resistance. And let’s not forget the set-in-cement financial and insurance industries.)

Supposedly knowledgeable people dismissed “dying from a broken heart” as an old wives’ tale, folklore, or a nice thing to say, as in “he just couldn’t go on living without her.”

When does a broken heart happen?

I first became interested in the broken heart topic after learning that one of my great-grandfathers had died just three weeks after his wife in 1933. However, it took a long time for the field of medicine to catch up with what that branch of my family intuitively knew: Grandpa’s heart broke when his beloved wife died.

More recently, famous people have died within hours, days, or weeks of each other. (One example was Debbie Reynolds after her daughter Carrie Fisher had died just the day before.) And we’ve likely all seen on TV news or the Internet the reports of the cases of an elderly couple who died within minutes of each other, holding hands in adjacent hospital beds.

Broken Heart Syndrome (Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy, also known as stress-induced cardiomyopathy), occurs when a surge of stress hormones temporarily damages the heart. This surge of hormones is caused by trauma, either physical or emotional:

• Acute illness

• A drug reaction

• Major surgery

• A broken bone

• Death of a loved one

• Loss of a job

• An intense argument

• A major disappointment

• A mental health disorder

• Spiritual abuse

Also see the American Heart Association, Psychology Today, and Johns Hopkins Medicine.

Is Broken Heart Syndrome a common happening?

The Mayo Clinic website considers death from Broken Heart Syndrome to be rare and most people recover in a few weeks without long-lasting effects. However, as reported in Psychology Today, new research shows that even when the patient survives, long-lasting effects may be severe.

The first 24 hours pose the highest risk of a fatal event for the victim of a loss or other trauma, as symptoms are very similar to a heart attack, which tests need to rule out.

The potential patient needs caring family members or friends to surround him or her for the first few days, unless there has been discord. In that case, those people would do far more harm than good. Friends came immediately when my husband died and some were at the hospital while he was in ER and the ICU.

Fortunately for me, none of my husband’s relatives were present. They would have been carving out the ways to get his estate before he’d even passed on. Either way, had I developed serious chest pain, I would have been right where I needed to be to get immediate help.

Possible Prevention

Since triggering events are usually sudden, it can be difficult to prevent the onset of a broken heart. However, taking care of ourselves by lowering the amount of stress we’re subjected to, perhaps by the practice of meditation, can improve our overall health. Other self-care includes choosing our “got-to-do’s” more carefully, eating a healthier diet, getting more sleep, listening to relaxing or inspiring music, and reading good books. Inspirational writing isn’t always the panacea it’s said to be but it can never do us harm!

Sometimes we also have to lower our expectations of other people. Some persons are just not on our wavelength, regardless of outward appearances or what we have heard them say in front of other people. Their often guilt-ridden backlash can be whiplash as we try to absorb what just slammed us.

A Next Step

Moving forward, the trite advice is that time heals. It does, but sometimes, healing is a very long time in the future. We can slowly put the pieces back together, as any form of grief sucks the life and health, and energy out of us.

I’m not one to pretend joy that I do not feel and I know many others are wearing fake smiles just to get through an occasion, however brief. Yet, smiling back at a child, giving a word of encouragement to someone else, or inhaling the scent of a rose, lifts our own heart just long enough for all of us to remember who we are, that is, children of God.

Disclaimer

Under no circumstances am I giving any kind of advice in this article. I am simply reporting from my own experiences and research. My blog posts are statements of opinion only. I am not in the business of giving financial, legal, medical, spiritual, or any other type of advice.