Can you really be scared to death? A cardiologist explains

Welcome back to Good Day Chicago. Liz is with me now. Okay, so October, they say, is the scariest month of the year. I say it's my birthday in January because the older I get, it becomes a little scarier. That's how I'm feeling, but mine is in November, so maybe it's November for me. Could be. Whether it's a scary movie or a haunted house, a lot of us are looking for the thrill that we get when we get frightened. A lot of us live for that thrill. But apparently, you can actually be scared to death, okay? Dr. Jeff Ziffra is a cardiologist in Downers Grove here with us this morning to explain. Doctor, good to have you here. So what is this? Good morning, Natalie. Good morning, Liz. Thanks for having me. It's true, you can actually be scared to death. It is rare, but people who have a scared or feared response can have a rush of adrenaline, epinephrine that can make your blood pressure and heart rate go up and can actually induce a cardiac event. In some rare cases, it can cause what we call Takotsubo syndrome, or broken heart syndrome, where people look and feel like they have a heart attack. It is rare and more common with people who have underlying cardiac conditions. So, I mean, do you know if you're, like, how do you know, are some people more susceptible to this than others? As in, like, should I, if, how do I know I have this so I should maybe not go to the haunted house? Yeah, good question, Liz Natalie. So it's usually people who have underlying heart disease, heart disorders, heart rhythm issues, when you see those signs for people who are told that if you have a heart condition, don't ride this ride, these are people who are more susceptible to that. The young and healthy patient may not exhibit any of these syndromes. For example, my son Noah likes to dress up in his costume and it spooked me, but I can see the symptoms go away pretty quickly. I shouldn't be as concerned. If you have persistent symptoms such as chest pain, shortness of breath, dizziness, and lightheadedness, you do have to take that seriously and can actually represent a cardiac condition so what is the difference then between like what i guess let me ask let me ask it this way what's going on inside our body when we feel that thrill you know that rush of adrenaline versus like real cardiac stress sure it's hard to distinguish both but your body does this as a defense mechanism it's like if we saw a bear out in the wild your blood pressure goes up your heart rate goes up your muscles engage and you're ready to defend yourself but it can feel exactly the same as people who have heart conditions so it's very difficult to discern these things and we do have to take them seriously especially if you have underlying heart conditions and especially if they're persistent but usually if we're healthy these will just go away with time as you realize this scare is not as bad as it as it should be so i i know you kind of mentioned this but this was when i was looking at this interview earlier the first thing that came to mind was like you hear this thing called this broken heart syndrome Can people, on the same note, can people also die of a quote unquote broken heart? You can actually. And the way people present is exactly the same as when you have a heart attack. People get a stressful response, a fearful response, get an illness, and they can look and feel like someone who's having a heart attack or heart failure. And bad consequences can actually happen with that. And so we have to treat these things seriously. But these stress responses we get all the time. It doesn't happen very often. Then maybe if you watch the Bears game this week, you may have felt the same thing. But these things usually do recover with time. If you do feel like something is off, maybe after a fright or a panic attack or something like that, you make an appointment with your doctor, right? I mean, is this something where you need to go to urgent care right away? Can you wait to try to get into your doctor? And then once you do, what kind of tests might be run? Yeah, unfortunately, if you have these persistent chest pain, shortness of breath, dizziness in that response, you do probably need an evaluation because we have to take all these things seriously. If you went to an ER or urgent care, they may do an EKG. They may do some blood work to kind of look at these things. And only if it's normal can we feel comfortable that it's less likely that it's going to be a permanent heart response. But unfortunately, when you can't discern these things, we have to take all of them very seriously. I was curious, and I don't know if I'm, I have seen these connections where people are talking about, you know, your cortisol is really high your adrenaline is running and then people talk about things like adrenal fatigue have you heard these these what does that have anything to do with this and you know then you see people talking about supplements to treat adrenal fatigue uh is it does any of that have any basis in truth exactly those things can occur but they're usually with chronic long-term stress not these acute scares so okay you know if you're getting going to a scary house every day uh you may get these chronic chronic syndromes with a lot of cortisol and can actually wear out your adrenal gland but in general these short spurts are safe and they should not cause those issues because they're very short and they don't last a long time well that's good news it is good news but i i want to stick with that topic what we're going off the rails here uh what about like like energy drinks and things like that or if you're taking consistently um one like a ritalin or something like that you have adult adhd maybe that's that's undiagnosed and so you're just taking a taking something can that cause adrenal fatigue and and what what is that yeah i mean it depends on the clinical situation of what are your underlying conditions i think if you have a lot of these things and your cortisol levels are high it definitely can cause long-term effects so you definitely have to talk to the doctor and talk about your underlying conditions before this is something that you use chronically your doctor can assess this and do tests to kind to determine if your levels are low. I do think if you have one or two of these things, it probably will be short-lived. It's more the chronic nature that can cause the adrenal fatigue and elevated cortisol levels and things like that. All right. So, I mean, when we talk about sort of the long term implications that might be impacting your heart, is there anything we should watch out for? I mean, obviously we want to watch our diet, but I mean, you know, Natalie mentioned energy drinks or you know can you drink too much caffeine or coffee is there anything that can really strain our hearts long term oh there's a lot of things that can do it primarily it's going to be diet and things that we're eating and drinking a lot of the things in these we don't even know what's in there and so all of these things can put stress on your heart the things that i would look for is seeing your doctor for regular checks talking about symptoms regular blood work and things like that if you're like me i take my kids Hannah Aida and noah we kind of go to the easy less stressful early round Halloween and try not stress ourselves out but i think in general to stretch that out we really have to be following with our doctor regularly and talking about symptoms and getting your regular regular checks to make sure everything is okay and then i think it's always important since we have a cardiologist on the line here to talk about the signs and symptoms of a heart attack if you feel this you need to go to the er now what are those things yes so the most classic is going to be chest pain primarily with activity it can radiate down your arm or your jaw. You can become nauseated, vomiting, dizziness, shortness of breath. These are all things that can occur within 10 to 20 minutes and are very suggestive of a heart attack. The problem is as we get older in certain subsets of population, such as females, you may have atypical symptoms such as indigestion or no symptoms at all. So it becomes very difficult to discern these things. We have to take all of them seriously and express to your doctor when you're feeling something that is abnormal to you because it can present atypically. All right, Dr. Ziffra, Good advice. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Thank you, Natalie. Thanks, Liz. It's good to have you here. You know, I had this the other day where I was really freaked out. My chest hurt a lot and then I forgot I worked out. Maybe that's, I'm just sore. But you know what? It's good to be aware of differences and something that seems a little off. Exactly. And then I remembered like, this is fine, but it is, it feels like a fine line sometimes. It does. It really does. Especially if there are no symptoms. Oh gosh. That's frightening. All right.