Gauge risk.
Smoking, high cholesterol, inactivity, stress, and obesity can weaken blood vessels. African Americans, diabetics, women with a family history of heart disease, or those who are older than 65 are also at increased risk.

Recognize symptoms.
If you are experiencing shortness of breath, fatigue, nausea, pressure in your chest, or gastric pain, seek emergency care. Most women have symptoms prior to their heart attack, several times a week, which mimic the sensations of the actual attack 1 week to 6 months later. Pay attention—and make sure your doctor does, too.

Get tested.
Ask for an exercise echo-cardiogram in addition to standard tests. It's an ultrasound of the heart performed after using a treadmill or stationary bike. If that's inconclusive, and you're still having symptoms, ask for a CT (computed tomography) scan or an MRI. Your doctor may also suggest an angiogram.

Find the right treatment.
A combination of balloon angioplasty, which widens clogged arteries, and stent placement, which props them open with a wire mesh tube, is more effective than clot busters for treating heart attacks in women. For more information, visit Healthy Women.

Ovarian Cancer
Ayala Miron, a civil engineer and mother of four in suburban Philadelphia, has always made sure to inform her physicians of any health problems. Yet Miron, now 49, suffered abdominal cramps, urinary discomfort, longer periods, and abnormal midcycle bleeding for years without getting a diagnosis. She did have an abdominal and vaginal ultrasound. But both came back clean, and her doctor never suggested a follow-up look. The midcycle bleeding she experienced, he assured her, was normal.

But at 40, after the birth of her fourth child, Miron started developing other strange sensations: a sharp pain in her shoulder whenever she drew a deep breath, and a stabbing pain in her abdomen. She called her internist about the pain, and a nurse practitioner told her to take three ibuprofen tablets.

Two days later, when the abdominal pain became too much to bear and she couldn't reach her internist, Miron asked her husband to take her to a nearby hospital. "I was literally in my car, sitting in front of the ER, when my internist called me on my cell phone," Miron recalls. "You're probably having a gall bladder attack," he told her. "There's no need to go to the ER." They drove home. Shortly afterward, when the doctor examined her, he found no sign of gall bladder trouble—and took no further action.

At age 43, after 3 years of on-again, off-again discomfort, Miron finally landed in the hospital with sharp abdominal pain, a swollen abdomen, and severe fatigue. The emergency room doctor was about to discharge her, saying that she probably had inflammation of the digestive tract. "Shouldn't you check something else?" Miron's husband asked.

The doctor relented and ordered a CT scan. It revealed in stark outline what Miron had dully sensed for years: Multiple malignant tumors had invaded her abdomen, pressing on her diaphragm, bladder, and nerves. She had ovarian cancer and it had reached stage 3, treatable with a hysterectomy and chemotherapy but with no guarantees against a recurrence.

This aggressive cancer strikes one out of 57 women, and though it can be effectively treated in its early stages, it's usually caught too late—when tumors have spread throughout the abdomen and to other parts of the body. Ovarian cancer is tricky to catch because most women have few distinctive symptoms during its initial stages, or doctors attribute the symptoms to irritable bowel syndrome, menopause, or aging.

Five years later, Miron has beaten the odds—for now. She spends her spare time educating women and medical students about the early signs of the disease. "Women need to trust their own bodies," she says. "If you're

feeling that something is wrong, don't assume anything. Be persistent. And don't wait."


taken from Yahoo woman's health



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