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laszlojamf | 3 months ago

Apparently it's no longer recommended, since it could also be an aortic rupture, and aspirin would make it worse. https://www.health.harvard.edu/heart-health/should-i-take-an...

discuss

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captainkrtek|3 months ago

Depends on protocols, but hence why EMS’ job is recognition of the right issue (the best we can do), there are things we can evaluate to determine if we think its an aortic aneurysm even at the emt level to rule that out before making the determination to give aspirin (eg: comparing bilateral blood pressures, checking for pulsating masses)

a heart attack is far more common than an aortic aneurysm.

laszlojamf|3 months ago

would comparing bilateral blood pressure (which I assume the patient could do themselves) be enough? I'm not asking for medical advice, just like... what would _you_ do if it was you who had sudden chest pain?

animal531|3 months ago

I googled a bit and I'm not sure I would follow the new advice simply because it totally depends on getting help to you fast enough such that they can determine if its a heart attack or something else.

In the writer's case that help never came, so personally if I had to choose I'd rather go with the risk of guessing the symptoms wrong and making things some percentage worse vs a possible death.