'Tis the season for heart attacks

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Story Published: Dec 11, 2007 at 10:50 AM PDT

By Laura Rillos

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'Tis the season for heart disease.

Holiday hallmarks like overeating, extra alcohol and all that stress can strain the heart.

Sacred Heart Medical Center is already seeing an increase in heart patients this month.

"It's something we see every year, the hospital gets full this time of year," said Dr. Richard Padgett, a cardiologist and the executive medical director of the Oregon Heart and Vascular Center.

Not only are heart attacks more common this time of year, more people die from them during the holidays.

Dr. Padgett says that's because many people resist coming to the hospital.

"There's a lot of denial that goes on," he said. "If they're having problems they don't want to interrupt their family's celebration and ignore those chest discomfort, chest pains that they might have at other times of the year gone and have checked out."

So by the time a person arrives at the hospital, it's often too late.

In the first hour after a heart attack, mortality rates double every fifteen minutes.

So Dr. Padgett recommends you get to the hospital at the first sign of symptoms.

In men--that means chest pain or discomfort that goes into the arm or neck.

In women--that could be unusual discomfort or pain in the arm, or something like feels like heart burn or indigestion

"If these are new symptoms and if they last for more than two minutes, you need to get those checked out," said Dr. Padgett.

If you do experience those symptoms, don't have someone drive you to the hospital.

Rather, Dr. Padgett recommends you call 911.

Thanks to Sacred Heart's new Cath Alert System, your heart attack can be diagnosed in your home and a medical team can begin preparing for you while you're en route to the hospital.

That can speed up your treatment by as much as 30 minutes.

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