Katherine, 52 ans

About 6 years ago, as I often do when I go for a run with my dog Puglia, I feel a pain in my left elbow which, as I run, radiates down to my wrist and fingertips. It then manifests itself every time I go for a run, right from the start, lasts just a few minutes and then disappears.

I get into the habit, every time I start running, of raising my arm to the sky, opening and closing my wrist several times, as if in this way I'm activating the blood circulation. The pain fades, then disappears.

At first, I didn't pay too much attention. But as the weeks go by, the pain on exertion becomes more noticeable, a little longer and, above all, deeper. I find it hard to describe my pain precisely, like a strong heat, tingling inside my forearm muscle.

I feel this pain as soon as I lift a pack of water, or when I climb stairs. I quickly feel out of breath, a bit like I'm being squeezed.

I decided to talk to my GP, who immediately suspected elbow tendonitis. Having spent several weeks a year earlier scouring walls, plastering and painting, the diagnosis made sense. And then, when you're riding a Harley weighing over 300 kg, your elbows are under a lot of strain.

I'm entitled to a course of painkillers and physiotherapy. They tell me that tendonitis takes a long time to heal. So I take my time before consulting the doctor again. I still see other doctors, take X-rays and do stress tests. But nothing. I'm always told there's nothing wrong with me.

In March 2020, the pain is still there and I even have the impression that it's getting worse with time. It now radiates down to my left shoulder.

I decide to go to the hospital for an internal medicine consultation. I want to understand what's happening to me. I haven't been running for over a year because of the pain, I'm tired, out of breath, I have back pain, neck pain, severe leg pain at night and during the day, to the point of having great difficulty getting out of bed because the pain is so strong, a kind of violent aches and pains, ophthalmic migraines, I'm starting to put on weight. But my GP and gynecologist put it down to hormones. So I'm a 51-year-old woman, probably in pre-menopause. Even if the blood tests say otherwise...

In March 2020, two appointments are scheduled for the following May 12, to check the blood and nerve circuit between my neck and my left wrist. The doctor doesn't understand what's happening to me. He checked my heart rate, MRI of the heart and lungs, but there again, all clear.
During these two months of waiting, in the middle of the confinement period, my condition worsens. I have palpitations at night and during the day, I can hear my heart beating in my ears, and I can no longer lie on my stomach because my heart beats so strongly in my chest. My nights are very restless and short. I'm always fast, but exhausted.

My appointments are approaching... Only five days to go... I'm out walking Puglia, on my own in the streets, confined as I am, with my discharge certificate thanks to the dog. All of a sudden, I'm seized by a violent pain in my left arm, a pain I recognize, but now to the power of a thousand, then in my thorax, preventing me from breathing, in my neck, then my jaw and the top of my skull... I'm forced to sit down on the sidewalk. Strangely enough, it only lasts a few seconds. Very quickly, I recovered from my emotions. I walk home as if nothing had happened.

I have two more identical episodes over the weekend. And no, I don't call the fire department or the ambulance, because it always passes very quickly.

On May 12, after the two examinations, I took the reports with me upstairs to the internal doctor's office. Suddenly, in front of his door, I had to sit down, seized by an even greater pain. I found myself in the cardiology department, hospitalized for 4 days.

Dozens of tests and a coronary angiogram later, I go home with a treatment for my heart and another for my hyperthyroidism!

One month to the day, on June 12, I had a second heart attack and was admitted to the hospital's intensive cardiology care unit.

Once again, no one understood why I had a second heart attack when I was being treated! It was only 2 months later, after seeing three endocrinologists, that the last one consulted asked me to undergo further tests and discovered that I had Graves' disease (a form of hyperthyroidism). I had no idea that the thyroid and the heart were so closely linked.

Today, with the right treatment, I'm doing better, even if it's not easy. It takes a long time to find the right dosage, and I still have heart episodes.

I wanted to share my story on the Agir pour le Coeur des Femmes website to help other women in my turn. To act effectively, you need to know the link between thyroid dysfunction, which is involved in our metabolism, and cardiovascular disease.