The silent symptoms Ayrshire gran suffered before fatal heart attack

dailyrecord.co.uk:

No-one could point the finger at loving husband Dougie Potter for not recognising the symptoms of an impending fatal heart attack in his wife, Theresa.Only now does he know they were there.

But, unlike the typical lifestyle traits of a man harbouring coronary heart disease, Theresa was an active woman with a balanced diet, who abstained from drinking and smoking.When cardiovascular disease suddenly claimed her life at the age of 62, Theresa didn’t experience the massive chest pains that tend to strike men.Rather, she described to Dougie a warm, tingling sensation in her finger tips, tiredness, and an unfamiliar sense of anxiety which gripped her in the night and made her consider waking him up.These were sly, stealthy symptoms that have left Dougie and his bereft family wondering ‘what if?’Although he and son Craig may have been broken by the sudden loss of their beloved wife and mum, the injustice of Theresa’s death has given them the impetus to set about changing the landscape in Scotland’s health culture.They are now on a determined mission to turn the spotlight on the subtle signs that indicate a woman may have coronary heart disease (CHD).In the last 18 months, Dougie and Craig have grasped every opportunity to tell Theresa’s story in the hope that a heightened level of awareness of the considerable risk posed by CHD will save other women’s lives.It was on July 27, 2020, when Dougie and Theresa drove to Irvine Harbour to take their usual one-hour walk that Covid lockdown restrictions allowed them.On arrival at the harbour that wet and windy Sunday, Theresa surprised her husband by telling him she ‘didn’t fancy it.’“We’d normally have gone out in any weather,” said Dougie. “She said: ‘I’m not feeling in-the-pink.