EXCLUSIVE: 'My twin sister and I had sudden heart-attacks only months apart'

In an exclusive interview with twin sisters and best friends from Kildare, they have shared their stories of how they both experienced sudden heart attacks only one year apart from each other.

The two women (39) who are originally from Mayo but grew up in Kildare, said that they are both the first people in their family to have sudden heart attacks, known as SCAD (Spontaneous coronary artery dissection). They were both completely shocked because they were both healthy and had no previous medical issues.

The twins both said that they are not only identical twins but they are also best friends and are very close to one another.

Therese said: "Mairead would be, not only my sister, but one of my best friends.... we always had a really close
relationship and we still do now....

"We've done a lot of twin things together, but this is the most twin thing that we have done!" she said, reflecting on the both of them having sudden heart attacks within months of each other.

"An example would be Mairead got a hairline wrist fracture when she was young and a year later, nearly to the exact same day, I got the same hairline fracture on my wrist. Like, in the exact same place.....so we've done a couple of those weird twin things," Therese said.

Mairead Lyons, who has a young daughter and lives with her partner in Meath, had the heart attack first in 2023.

"In September 2023 I was at the gym doing a session and I was kind of going back into business after having Ellie and moving to Trim....

"I started feeling a bit funny and I thought I pulled a muscle....but it didn't go away so I was like right I'll just leave the gym and go home....

"Got home about seven a.m and ended up having the pain again that just wouldn't go away.... I tried to relax and I tried to start working and just go on with it, but I wasn't happy....so I rang my mom Sheila who's a nurse and she said just ring the ambulance," Mairead said.

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"I rang the emergency line and they suggested taking an aspirin before the ambulance got there.... so I took that and started feeling better.....the ambulance got there and they had the ECG and it showed nothing....

"So I was like, right, it's probably just an anxiety attack....I was feeling okay at that stage but the tests indicated that I was having a heart attack, which was crazy to me to be honest, because like I was a fairly fit person and I didn't have any markers like my cholesterol and all that was grand".

Mairead said that she was kept in hospital for the weekend and they done an angiogram, which is an operation to check your heart with a camera.

On the Monday she was transferred to another hospital and it "got really, really scary really fast".

"I had another heart attack or what it felt like another heart attack on the night of the angiogram.....at that stage I was given like loads of painkillers and I started hallucinating and seeing stuff that I probably didn't want to see.....I seen my dad and my dad had passed in October 22......so I was fairly convinced I had another heart attack.

"There was like doctors and nurses all around me, so I got quite sick....and then I was just kind of being monitored for the ten days that I was in the hospital....I was kept in the cardiac unit for 10 days... where they just made sure that I was okay".

Mairead went home after this ordeal and took ten weeks off of work. She said she had to re-learn what her body was now capable of because her heart needed to recover and over working it could cause pain and strain.

Life now for Mairead now is mixed she said, she was told she can't have any more children and doing certain activities could trigger another heart attack.

"At the same time I'm a lot more positive now and calmer...nothing is more important than yourself and your family so....I used to be a really big control freak and now I'm not....I pick my battles wisely".

Therese Walsh, who lives in Rathangan in Kildare, lives with her husband and baby Jack and describes her experience when she had a sudden heart attack while having a cup of tea at home.

"It was just a random heart attack, so what it is called is a spontaneous coronary artery defection or SCAD...and basically what happened was I was just sitting down having a cup of tea and felt kind of nauseous and sweaty all of a sudden.

"And it passed pretty quickly, but then I had this pain and I thought it was muscular....and I didn't have any funny feelings in my left arm...I had a weird feeling in my right arm, but I thought it was just muscular as well.

"So I just went to bed and thought I could keep it off, but I couldn't.....I ended up going to K-Doc in Naas, and they referred me to the hospital where I was told I had a heart attack and I was transferred to Tallaght hospital, which is where I received treatment for the heart attack.

Therese said that at the time the doctors didn't know, if the heart attack was caused by the fertility treatment she was receiving at the time.

"I had a trigger shot, which increases the HCT level in your body...so it looks like you're pregnant, but you may or may not be pregnant.....they think that's what happened, and because they weren't sure if I was pregnant or not, they weren't sure how to treat me.

"I wasn't pregnant so I went back and I had made a good recovery, so they didn't see any need for intervention.

"I was on the typical medication for a heart attack, which is aspirin and beta blockers.....and that was kind of it...I was just focused on getting better, but I did have a lot of medical anxiety.

Therese and her husband decided they weren't going to keep trying for baby but then in November they got a surprise.

"Obviously that brought a bit of anxiety because I wasn't sure if that was going to cause another heart attack, or if that was going to impact my health anymore, you know, again.

"So I went to a private hospital and was very up to date on SCAD research
and stuff.....but the pregnancy went really well, there was no issues whatsoever".

"I wanted to make sure that I was taking all the advice and doing everything I could to make sure that I was healthy, and the baby was healthy.

Therese said that when she realised she had had a heart attack she had a meltdown.

"I thought it can't be that... I'm just overreacting and I'm just being a hypochondriac but I said I'll go and check it out anyway....but then, yeah, I think it was like one or two in the morning when they told me.....I was like, disbelief, complete disbelief.

"And scared about what that might mean. But, you know, I'm grateful I got seen to quick anyway, because I've taken it seriously with Mairead."

Therese said the experience gave her a whole different perspective of life.

"It definitely made me a lot more anxious as a person....I already am an anxious person, but health anxiety is a real thing for me...it's always in the back of my mind and I'm always checking my body for signs and stuff...but I'm a lot more calmer in terms of work and how I approach my life there".

Therese gave a special mention to her rehab nurses in Naas have been phenomenal.

"They were just absolutely amazing throughout the whole thing and making sure I was OK and stuff like
that....so that's been really good....my GP has been fantastic as well....he is great for checking in and stuff".

She also gave a special mention to the Irish Heart Foundation. She said that she was actually going to take part in a run for the foundation around the time she had the heart attack.

"It's funny, when I had my heart attack, it was the week before the mini marathon....and I was actually going to run it for the Irish Heart Foundation....and then on weekend, I was texting them going, oh, you'll never believe this, but I'm not going to
go because I had a heart attack.

"They've been so good in highlighting women's health matters as well, which I think is really important because we tend to be gaslighted ourselves and think, oh, no, we're just overthinking it...It's fine....It's just muscular or whatever.....but it is really important to trust your gut and know when something's not right and fight for yourself."