Can A Heart Attack Be The Trigger For Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)?

Heart attacks are very traumatic experiences, even if the damage they do can be reversed and a person’s health condition can be improved when the doctor’s recommendations are followed by the book. However, there is also the problem of a person’s mental state after having survived such an event. It’s no secret that heart attacks can trigger negative emotions such as depression and anxiety, but can they lead to PTSD?

What is PTSD?

Post-traumatic stress disorder, also known as PTSD, is a psychiatric condition that can occur when people have gone through a traumatic experience. These events are varied and can range from witnessing a terrorist act to being a victim of abuse.

People who suffer from PTSD will often recall their traumatizing experience to a point where it alters their feelings and their state of mind. Many of them relive the event and experience emotions with the same intensity as they felt when it first occurred. It is not uncommon for people with PTSD to avoid any circumstances or people that might remind them of the event.

While there medication can be prescribed for people who have PTSD, different forms of therapy are recommended in order to overcome the trauma. These therapies include:

• Prolonged exposure therapy. This is meant to expose the person to things that could trigger the trauma but in a safe and controlled environment. The purpose is to help that person face their fear and learn how to control their emotions.
• Cognitive processing therapy. The purpose of this type of therapy is to model negative emotions and beliefs so that people will learn to overcome negative memories. 

Heart attacks and PTSD: What do you need to know?

PTSD is often associated with events such as rape, natural disaster, wars, and terrorism. However, experiencing a life-threatening event such as a heart attack can also cause PTSD. 

It all makes sense when you think about it: one of the most common problems people face while recovering from a heart attack is a wave of negative emotions and learning how to live with the fear of knowing that something bad can happen to you at any moment.

It’s not uncommon for heart attack survivors to experience feelings such as anxiety, anger, fear, or depression, particularly because they are afraid that this might happen again, and because they are angry with themselves for allowing this to happen in the first place.

PTSD and poor sleep

For a long time, researchers have speculated that heart disease and PTSD are somehow linked. Specifically, they claimed that people with PTSD are more likely to develop cardiac disease. According to the Columbia University Medical Center, it seems that people who have experienced a heart attack are more likely to develop symptoms of PTSD.

As a paper published in the Annals of Behavioral Medicine states, PTSD is linked to a heart attack through poor sleeping routines. It would seem that sleep quality decreases in the months following a heart attack, which can manifest itself through shorter sleeping hours, waking up easily during the night, having to use sleep medications to fall asleep, or lack of focus and control the next day due to poor sleeping patterns.

What research says

Research has discovered about that one in eight people who have survived a heart attack will develop signs that are very familiar to those experienced by people who have PTSD. Despite the fact that the definition of PTSD is typically related to other forms of trauma, one must look beyond the definition to see the resemblance.

Those who suffer from PTSD will often have flashback episodes of their trauma, with nightmares that seem very realistic and cover people in fear and intrusive thoughts. Not only that, but those who suffer from PTSD, as well as those who survive a heart attack, will go to great lengths to avoid being reminded of what they went through, as well as live with a constant fear that it might happen again.

Research also suggests that most people who experienced PTSD-like symptoms after having a heart attack were between the age of 53 and 67, but younger adults are no strangers to these symptoms either.

Furthermore, those who have suffered a heart attack and also show symptoms of PTSD have double the risk of suffering from yet another heart attack compared to those without PTSD. The studies lacked some important information, such as the severity of the recorded heart attack. For instance, doctors suspect the likelihood of having heart attack-induced PTSD is higher among people who required resuscitation because of the heart attack.

PTSD: Signs to look out for

Experiencing some emotional difficulties after a heart attack is normal. However, if you notice the following symptoms on a regular basis after having survived a heart attack, you shouldn’t neglect them in the hope that they’ll pass. Talk to your doctor or a therapist if you:

• Keep replaying the heart attack in your mind over and over again.
• Notice that your body has an intense reaction each time you remember the heart attack, such as muscle tension, rapid heartbeats, or elevated blood pressure.
• Notice that you are doing just about everything to avoid things that could remind you about the event, such as talking to the people that were there with you or avoiding the place where you were when it happened.
• Have increased anxiety and are quickly irritated or angry, have difficulties in falling asleep, wake up in the middle of the night worrying, or have difficulty concentrated because you feel scared and overwhelmed.

Conclusion