Joanie Simpson, a healthy woman of 62, literally suffered a heart break after the death of her beloved Yorkshire terrier.
Joanie Simpson, experienced chest pains after her nine-year-old dog, Meha, died in May 2016.
When she was airlifted to the hospital, doctors told her that the devastation she experienced following Meha’s death nearly killed her.
She was diagnosed with the potentially-fatal Takotsubo cardiomyopathy or 'broken-heart syndrome'.
Her story, that has since then been published in the New England Journal of Medicine, exemplifies the physical damage that overwhelming sadness can do to one's body in the wake of a loss.
Meha’s death from congestive heart failure devastated Simpson and a few days after the dog’s demise, Simpson woke up with a back ache and chest pains, and she went to a local emergency room.
Simpson was then airlifted to Hermann Memorial Hospital in Houston, where she was taken to the cardiac catheterization lab at Hermann Memorial, and physicians inserted a tube into her heart via her groin.
They expected to see blocked arteries, but x-rays showed them something different, Dr Abhishek Maiti, who treated Simpson, told the Post.
They checked the arteries but all of them were crystal clear. Simpson was then diagnosed with Takotsubo cardiomyopathy.
The condition imitates a heart attack and happens when an overwhelming amount of hormones stress the heart. The sensation creates spasms, and 'broken heart syndrome' can be fatal.
Simpson was treated with an angiotensin-converting-enzyme (ACE) inhibitor and a beta-blocker. Once she was stable again doctors explained her condition to her and what had happened. She said it 'made complete sense.'
Simpson had to stay in the hospital for two days following her diagnosis, and she now has to take two heart medications. But she is otherwise healthy.
Even though Meha's death could have killed her, Simpson said she plans to get another dog in the future.
