The silent heart attack you did not know you had
by from on (#4T61C)
When my Aunt Gert had a heart attack in her mid-70s, the examining doctor told her that it was not her first. Tests done to assess the damage to her heart revealed a section of dead muscle from a previous unrecognized heart attack. Sometime in the past, she had had what doctors call a "silent myocardial infarction," or SMI, silent in that any symptoms she might have had at the time did not register as related to her heart and were not brought to medical attention.