Moneymore woman urges support for run against heart disease

The campaign is part of the fight against heart disease which is the number one killer of women in the Province today - killing almost three times as many women as breast cancer.

Readers can join Sinead and all the men and women doing their part to fight heart disease by signing up to NICHS’s Red Dress Run on February 11.

Sinead, a young mum that had no health problems and lived a healthy lifestyle wants to share her story to help raise awareness of the effects and the impacts of heart disease.

Two weeks after giving birth to Chloe on January 18 2009, she had the heart attack despite an otherwise normal labour.

“On January 28 2009, the health visitor came for a routine visit. She took my blood pressure and all was normal. She had only been gone about 10 minutes when I had a sharp, severe pain between my shoulder blades,” she said. “It was my husband Paul’s last day of paternity leave so he was at home with me. I told him I had a wild pain in my back and we wondered if it was a muscle spasm.

“The pain then moved to under my left arm. It was a crushing, tight pain that no matter how you tried to reach it to rub it and soothe it, you just couldn’t. The pain was like nothing I’d ever experienced, even worse than labour.”

Appealing for people to support the Red Dress Run, Sinead said the heart attack was a life changing event, but she is thankful to be alive.