3 Black Women Share the Symptoms That Led to Their Heart Failure Diagnoses

If you’re experiencing heart failure, which happens when your heart can’t pump enough blood to support your body, you might not know it right away. The condition’s subtler symptoms, like fatigue, nausea, and low appetite,¹ can sometimes seem like the result of an extra tiring week at work or even a stomach bug. If the signs of heart failure aren’t obvious, you might live with it for years without knowing. That’s really dangerous, because untreated heart failure (which can be caused by hypertension or heart valve disease) can do serious damage to your kidneys and liver, or contribute to other serious heart conditions, like shock or even cardiac arrest.

For Black women, spotting heart failure signs early is particularly important: Nearly half of all African American women in the US have some form of cardiovascular disease, and they have the highest rates of heart failure among women.² Black women are also more likely than their white counterparts to die from heart disease, stroke, and congestive heart failure.³ The reasons for this are complex, but lack of representation in medical research and obstacles to accessing affordable, quality health care can play a role.² The racism that many Black women experience—like employment and housing discrimination—also contributes to stress, which can make Black women more susceptible to heart disease, per the American Heart Association (AHA) and research from the Journal of Women’s Health.²

Bias in the health care system is real and can lead to worse outcomes for Black women: Primary care doctors overlook one third of all heart failure cases, with Black women accounting for many of those misdiagnoses, according to a study in Circulation: Heart Failure.⁴ What’s more, when Black women flag cardiovascular symptoms to a primary care physician—like shortness of breath, for example—they’re less likely to be referred to cardiologists or other specialists for care, as SELF previously reported.

Though heart failure manifests differently depending on the person who has it, it helps to know the signs that something is potentially off—so you can get help ASAP if you need it. Here, three Black women share the symptoms that led to their heart failure diagnosis.

“I felt like I was drowning.”

In 2020, Keahna Sawyer, 34, had an otherwise normal labor at home before heading to the hospital to give birth. “After I got my epidural, my blood pressure dropped dramatically,” Sawyer tells SELF. “[My ob-gyn] had to give me an IV with medicine; I was feeling sick and weak, like I couldn’t catch my breath.” Despite that scare, she and her newborn were discharged 48 hours later.

At home, Sawyer was so fatigued that she could barely carry her baby up the stairs. She also had trouble breathing as she slept. “I felt like I was drowning,” she recalls. (Difficulty breathing is a common heart failure symptom, since the condition causes fluid to pool in the lungs.)

After three days, Sawyer suspected she was dealing with more than just postpartum symptoms—she’d given birth twice before without these problems. Sawyer went to the emergency room to get things checked out. “My heart was racing, and I was dizzy,” she recalls.

The doctors noticed her blood pressure was abnormally high—around 180 systolic pressure and 120 diastolic pressure, she says. (A normal blood pressure range for adults is around 120 systolic pressure and 80 diastolic pressure, or 120/80, according to the AHA. High blood pressure can coincide with heart failure.) There was also fluid in her chest (which explained her issues with breathing at night). Those symptoms led the doctors to a diagnosis: Sawyer was in the early stages of heart failure. She received a diuretic to alleviate the fluid buildup, as well as medication to lower her blood pressure.⁵ Following that episode in the emergency room, Sawyer made regular appointments to see her cardiologist and took medication to keep her blood pressure low. She says those steps led to her complete recovery by her one-year check-up.

After her initial diagnosis, Sawyer found out she had a family history of heart disease on her father’s side. “I did not know my father’s family, so I wasn’t aware of my risk,” she explains. (Having even one parent with a history of early-onset cardiovascular disease can increase a woman’s chance of developing it by as much as 70%.⁶)

“I felt exhausted by little things…even just picking up my kids.”

Chevonne Dixon, 37, started having heart issues at 19, when doctors discovered she had a heart murmur at a routine physical. “My mitral valve had prolapsed,” she tells SELF. This meant that its flaps, which ensure blood flows in and out of the heart in the right direction, weren’t closing properly.

After having surgery to replace the valve, Dixon’s heart functioned normally for nearly a decade, until 2015, when she noticed she was weirdly tired all the time. “I started feeling exhausted by little things, like cleaning the house, walking—even just picking up my kids,” she recalls. Dixon was so drained that she had trouble commuting to her office, and she had no appetite: “I would eat a small amount of food, be full for the entire day, and not feel hungry,” she says.⁷

Dixon made an appointment with her cardiologist, who gave her a series of tests. One was a positron emission tomography (PET) test, a tool that can be used to measure a person’s “ejection fraction,” or the percentage of blood your heart pumps out with each beat.⁸ Dixon’s ejection fraction was 17%—far below 40%, or what’s considered a normal amount—which can sometimes indicate heart failure. The cardiologist also discovered liquid pooled around her heart and lungs, and that her resting heart rate spiked far over 100 beats per minute—a condition called tachycardia, which can lead to cardiac arrest. (A normal resting heart rate is between 60 and 100 beats per minute, per the AHA.)

Dixon’s cardiologist diagnosed her with heart failure and prescribed her a diuretic and blood pressure medication. At a follow-up appointment, doctors placed a cardiac defibrillator under the skin of her armpit to regulate her heart. “If my heart goes into one of these dangerous rhythms, it will shock it back into a normal rhythm, preventing cardiac arrest,” she explains.

Dixon still deals with some lingering symptoms, like fatigue, a racing heart, and a low appetite. But she’s hopeful about the future. “I have two kids, and I want to make breakfast for them. I want to see them off to school. That’s important to me,” Dixon says. She also visits her cardiologist regularly, takes medication to keep her blood pressure steady, and watches her sodium intake. “If I can keep this heart for as long as I can, that’ll be perfect.”

“I stopped eating, and I was sweating with a fever.”

In 2017, Latasha Haynes, 41, thought she had the flu. “I stopped eating and was sweating [with] a fever,” she tells SELF. Haynes also struggled to stay awake during the day, had difficulty breathing, and felt intense back pain.⁹ After a few days with those symptoms, Haynes felt so run-down that she went to the hospital.

Her health was in a more dire state than she realized: Haynes had pneumonia, myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle), and pericarditis (when the thin membrane that holds your heart in place becomes stiff, messing with the heart’s ability to pump blood). She was diagnosed with heart failure. “[The hospital staff] had me sign paperwork for medical power of attorney,” Haynes recalls. “They asked my husband if I had a will—I was worried that they were prepping for me to die.” There was fluid around her lungs, so doctors at the hospital treated the buildup with a diuretic and blood pressure medication to reduce the strain on her heart.

After 16 days in the hospital, Haynes recovered from pneumonia and was discharged. In the weeks after, she worked with her cardiologist to get her heart back to full strength, which included changes to her eating and exercise habits. She believes those steps led to her heart failure reversing. “I went to my one-year check-up in March 2018, and my heart was in good condition,” she says. “It was like the heart failure never happened.”

If you’re suddenly (and inexplicably) losing energy or your appetite, or something just doesn’t feel right in any area of your health, talk to your health care provider. Heart failure can be treated—and even reversed, in some cases.

Of course, the onus shouldn’t be solely on you when it comes to your care—a medical pro should be able to spot heart failure signs (and treat the disease). However, knowing what the condition looks like—and scheduling regular visits with a primary care physician—can go a long way in keeping you safe. Go into your appointments prepared to discuss your lifestyle (like your diet, how often you exercise, and your general stress levels), as well as any family history of heart disease, so your doc can better understand what you, personally, need to be healthy. And don’t stop listening to your body; if you know in your heart (pun intended) that something doesn’t feel right, keep pressing until you get the answers—and care—you deserve.

Sources:

1. Circulation, State of the Science: The Relevance of Symptoms in Cardiovascular
2. Journal of Women’s Health, The Cardiovascular Disease Epidemic in African American Women: Recognizing and Tackling a Persistent Problem
3. Journal of the National Medical Association, Cardiovascular Disease in African American Women: A Health Care Disparities Issue
4. Circulation: Heart Failure, Disparity in the Setting of Incident Heart Failure Diagnosis
5. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Diuretics for Heart Failure (Review)
6. JAMA, Parental Cardiovascular Disease as a Risk Factor for Cardiovascular Disease in Middle-Aged Adults, A Prospective Study of Parents and Offspring
7. Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing, Changes in Appetite During the Heart Failure Trajectory and Association With Fatigue, Depressive Symptoms, and Quality of Life
8. Clinical and Translational Imaging, The Role of PET Quantification in Cardiovascular Imaging
9. Geriatric Nursing, Back Pain and Heart Failure in Community-Dwelling Older Adults: Findings from the Health ABC Study

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