Busy with work, family, and life, she brushed off occasional chest pains as stress. But a month after her husband suffered a heart attack, the twinges became impossible to ignore.
“I began getting chest pains and my GP thought it might be my medication,” Melissa said.
“I didn’t take it seriously at first; I was too young to have heart problems.”
Her symptoms didn’t fade and an abnormal ECG led to a referral to a cardiologist within 48 hours.
“They told me they had never seen an ECG like that without someone having a major heart attack,” she said.
At the time, Melissa was working full-time as a corporate services manager, juggling multiple responsibilities, and had to stop work suddenly for four weeks while undergoing further testing and an angiogram in Melbourne.
For six years, Melissa endured repeated chest pains, often at rest, mimicking heart attacks with sweating, nausea, and jaw pain, yet she was repeatedly told it might be stress or medication.
“It was hard because my blood tests were always normal,” she said.
“My ECGs were abnormal, but I was told to walk more and it would pass - you start doubting yourself, you wonder if it’s in your head.”
Finally, a specialised provocative angiogram confirmed the cause - vasospastic (Prinzmetal) angina, a condition where small coronary vessels spasm even though the heart itself is healthy.
“Getting that diagnosis was huge, physically and mentally; I knew it wasn’t imaginary, it was real,” Melissa said. “Even now, attacks can happen unexpectedly, and each one feels like a heart attack. It’s terrifying.”
Melissa believes chronic stress may have contributed, but says the bigger lesson is listening to your body and advocating for yourself.
“As professional women, we tend to say, ‘It’s normal’ or ‘I’m too young’,” she said.
Chronic stress quietly affects millions, raising the risk of heart disease.
Cardiologist Dr Avedis Ekmejian said acute stress could trigger a heart attack or “broken heart syndrome,” while chronic stress slowly increases blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar.
Prolonged stress keeps people tense, reactive, and mentally exhausted.
“Women need to take symptoms seriously and find doctors who will listen; you have to advocate for yourself, keep asking questions, and seek the right specialists,” Melissa said.
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