Rachel Spillane chats to Kerry woman Pauline O’Shea who was diagnosed with heart failure weeks after giving birth.   

Three weeks after the birth of her third child, Pauline O’Shea was told she had the heart of a 70-year-old. This news would have come as a shock to anyone, but for Pauline, who was only 38 at the time, it was unimaginable. Pauline had complained of a tearing sensation in her chest only five days after giving birth, to which her doctors diagnosed her with a viral infection and she was sent home. The virus was later confirmed to have been a heart attack. And a week after the initial misdiagnosis, when her concerns were dismissed, Pauline suffered two more cardiac arrests before she was taken to Dublin for surgery. “The bottom line was that from the very first heart attack, my heart muscle had been deprived of oxygen. I was experiencing heart failure from the get-go.”

A recent report from the Irish Heart Foundation and Roche Diagnostics reveals that women in Ireland are waiting nearly twice as long as men to receive a heart failure diagnosis. Heart failure - a condition which affects approximately 90,000 people in Ireland - needs to be identified quickly and any delay in diagnosis can lead to poorer quality of life, mental health issues, impact on relationships and financial strain. “Every time the heart is deprived of oxygen, the muscle becomes damaged. And as they told me later on, some of my heart had died,” Pauline explains. “That was an awful thing to hear because I went back into the hospital after my third heart attack. My GP didn’t like the look of me and I was getting weaker all the time. Yet still, they didn’t diagnose me properly.”

Pauline underwent emergency bypass surgery but even then, information was still limited. “I didn’t know why I had to have it. It was only when I came out of surgery that I learned the misdiagnosis had happened. It was absolutely horrendous.”

“I didn’t even understand the term heart failure, and I’m not alone in that. A lot of people don’t understand what heart failure means. I assumed it meant I only had days to live.”

The staggering reality of Pauline’s heart failure diagnosis is that if there been greater awareness or information surrounding heart failure at her disposal, her journey would have been a lot different. Pauline says language, thoroughness and testing at the right time are crucial. “Those things would make a huge difference, not just to the actual diagnosis but it would also make a difference for the patient in terms of their understanding.”

“I think there’s also a sort of public vacuum in relation to women’s heart health,” she says. “Women often assume breast checks and those sort of things are the only women’s issues, but heart issues in women is one of the leading killers, not just in Ireland, but around the world.”

Pauline believes there needs to be “broader education, public and medically, on heart health and the signs and symptoms of heart failure.”

For anyone who is suffering from heart failure, Pauline says to keep to reputable medical websites when looking online. “It’s important to educate yourself and know that it is not the end of your story by any means.”

For more information, visit irishheart.ie.

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