After a heart attack, the anxiety about having another heart attack can be overwhelming. It feels like the odds are about 99% that one will have another heart attack, probably within the next day.
For the first three weeks after my heart attack, I was deathly afraid of going to sleep at night, since I didn’t think I would wake up the next day.
Ten percent risk is relatively low; this statistic was not enough to convince me that there was a greater than average chance I would make it through the year.
Anxiety is irrational: try convincing people hiking in the Alaska wilderness that their odds of being eaten that day by a grizzly bear is less than 1 in 1,000,000 — much less likely than that of being killed by a coke machine (which kills about six people a year, when they shake them.)
It took me more than two years after the heart attack to get over the belief that I would die within a short time. I had extensive free-floating anxiety that I couldn’t shake, no matter what psychological or cognitive approach I tried. It was only when I finally took Wellbutrin that I felt some relief from the chronic anxiety —
So far I have survived five years. I am still not convinced that the odds are in my favor. At 3% a year, that means that on any given day the chances of having a heart attack are less than 1 in 10,000. I am still not convinced.
BBC
Heart attack recovery
Dr Trisha Macnair
Many people live in fear of another attack – and with good reason. About ten per cent of those who have a heart attack will have another one within a year of leaving hospital. This risk drops to about three per cent every year after that.
