What happened to your heart?

You know by now that you've had a heart attack. The medical term for this is 'myocardial infarction', which is often shortened to 'MI'. The information given here has been designed to help you understand what caused your MI.

The heart

The heart is a pump. It has four chambers that work in combination to move blood around the body. The walls of these chambers are made of muscle that is specially designed to contract and relax rhythmically and in a synchronized manner. It is this synchronized activity that moves blood around the body.

The heart itself needs blood in order to stay alive and healthy. This blood is supplied through the coronary arteries  that run across the surface of the heart. A heart attack occurs if one or more of these arteries is blocked, cutting off the blood supply to part of the heart and causing damage to some of the muscle.

How do the coronary arteries become blocked?

The commonest cause of coronary artery blockage is the creation of a blood clot or thrombus. Often these clots are formed at places where fatty deposits have developed in the lining of the arteries. The technical term for the fatty deposits is a 'plaque' but you may find it helpful to think of them as being like a pimple or a boil. When a plaque bursts, the contents are released into the coronary artery and this causes the blood inside the artery to clot and block the vessel.

Click here to find an illustration on how a heart attack develops.