"I thought, 'This is crazy. These are the same kind of symptoms that I had three years ago'"
Emmy Awarding winning actress Susan Lucci has revealed she underwent a second procedure on her heart.
During an appearance on Good Morning America, the 75-year-old opened up about her second emergency heart procedure following her initial operation in 2019, which included putting in two stents.
“I was having kind of a shortness of breath,” Lucci said and added she had also felt discomfort around her ribcage and back which felt similar to the symptoms she had three years ago with her initial heart scare.
“I thought, ‘This is crazy. These are the same kind of symptoms that I had three years ago but it can’t be,'” she continued. “But when I lay down, I started to feel a sharp coming-and-going pain in my jaw.”
She and her husband Helmut Huber then decided to go to the emergency room following her doctor’s advice. After several tests, her doctor revealed that she had an 80% blockage in one of her arteries as a result of plaque buildup.
Lucci was then rushed to a cardiac catheterization lab where another stent was put into her heart to clear the blockage.
“She wasn’t having a heart attack this time and she wasn’t unstable,” said Dr. Richard Shlofmitz, chairman of cardiology at St. Francis Hospital. “But she had symptoms that were certainly concerning to me that something might be wrong.”
The “All My Children” actress is now urging women to listen to their bodies and to stay educated on the warning signs of heart failure.
“Listen to your heart and act on it,” she stated. “Be your own best friend. Be your own advocate. You’ll save your life.”
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“I feel so lucky to have the platform that I have,” Lucci said of her heart advocacy, including frequent trips to Capitol Hill. “The fans that I have made over the years are so passionate and so wonderful. I’m so grateful for them in my life and I just wanted to be able to do something more than entertain.”
Back in 2019, Susan spoke to Variety after the first heart scare and revealed her surprise diagnosis.
“It was so shocking to me. I’ve never had a health issue. I eat super foods — blueberry, salmon and kale,” Lucci said at the time.
“What I will say is that my message to women is put yourself on your to-do list and listen to your body, and if there’s anything unusual, go ahead and take care of it,” she said. “Heart disease kills more women than all cancer combined. I don’t think a lot of people know that. I didn’t know it.”
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