Administrative officer Amy Ong recalls her series of heart problems. GERALDINE LING reports

Mrs Amy Ong, 43, has had three heart operations and a heart attack.

It is quite uncommon for a woman of her age to have this condition – coronary artery disease (CAD) or a blockage of the heart arteries.

Risk of CAD increases with age, generally from middle age onwards. However, younger people may have the disease if there are other risk factors like high blood pressure, diabetes or high cholesterol, or if they are smokers.

Dr Goh Ping Ping, the chief and senior consultant at the cardiology department at Changi General Hospital (CGH), estimated that men comprise two-thirds of her CAD patients.

Mrs Ong first felt light chest pains four years ago while taking a shower.

“It felt then like someone had reached in and squeezed my heart,” said the administrative officer at the Anglican Diocese of Singapore.

The pain lasted about 30 seconds, then went away. However, it resurfaced the following week and that set off alarm bells for Mrs Ong.

She saw her family doctor who referred her to a cardiologist who ran a series of tests including a cardiac computed tomography (CT) scan. It showed that one of her coronary arteries was 70 per cent blocked – a condition Dr Goh considered serious.

The next day, she had an angioplasty, an operation to unblock clogged arteries. A stent was inserted to help open the artery and decrease the chances of the vessel narrowing again.

Recalling her lifestyle before her angioplasty, Mrs Ong, who had high cholesterol levels, said: “I had a poor diet and would eat deep-fried food almost every day. Even at the yong tau foo (stuffed beancurd) stall, I would pick only deep-fried items.”

Both her parents had a history of heart disease and her father died of hypertension when she was 18.

Recovery from her first heart surgery went well. She returned to work after two weeks. She also gave up her unhealthy eating habits and began brisk walking on a daily basis.

However within a year, the chest pains recurred. They were slight at first, but lasted all day after a week.

At CGH, where she was later warded, the same artery that had been operated on was found to be clogged again and a second angioplasty was needed.

However, her condition did not improve and three months later, she had a heart attack, albeit a mild one.

She did not have any major chest pains when the attack occurred – just bouts of indigestion, nausea and diarrhoea which lasted all day. Unknown to her then, these were symptoms of a heart attack which was
confirmed with an electrocardiogram (ECG) test at the hospital the next day.

Her artery was clogged again, despite her efforts at improving her diet and incorporating regular exercise into her daily life.

Doctors found that the repeated clogging of her artery was due to restenosis, or the re-narrowing of the artery after the stent implantation. This was due to an overproduction of scar tissue after the stent had been put in.

Restenosis is not common, occurring in fewer than one in five patients.

As the stents were unsuitable for her, doctors recommended heart bypass surgery, a procedure that creates a new route for blood to flow around the blocked part of the artery.
 
She took a longer time to recover this time round, but she has not had any heart problems since the bypass.

Today, besides daily brisk walks, she exercises twice a week at the Singapore Heart Foundationunder its cardiac rehabilitation programme, where recovered heart patients work out under a physiotherapist’s supervision.

She is married to a building consultant, 47. The couple have no children.

Despite her past ordeals, Mrs Ong, who weighed 60kg before and who has lost 10kg since her first surgery, sees a silver lining.

She said: “Before my illness, I was quite hot-tempered. But after my diagnosis, I realised I could not allow myself to get angry as it would aggravate my condition.”