Should I take an aspirin after a heart attack?

Should I take an aspirin after a heart attack?

Rose Marie Robertson, MD, FAHA, FACC, FESC (Chief Science Officer and Past President of the Board of American Heart Association) gives expert video advice on: What do I do if I think I'm having a heart attack?; How can I examine myself for heart disease?; What questions should I ask my doctor if I am diagnosed with a heart condition? and more...

Now people often wonder what else they might do while they're waiting for the ambulance to arrive. They know that people are given an aspirin early on their arrival in the emergency room, so they wonder if they should take an aspirin before they leave the place they're at.We don't actually advise people to do that. When the ambulance comes, they often, if they think this is a heart attack, will give you an aspirin. On the other hand, if they think it's a bleeding ulcer, they might not want to do that. And so it really is best to have someone make that medical judgment for you. It also may make you think that the aspirin is going to make your pain go away. We don't want people to take an aspirin and then wait for the pain to go away. The aspirin that you take in the early hours of a heart attack is not there to make the pain go away. It's to treat specific problems that occur in the clotting system when we come and open an artery, in particular. So let's let the emergency room physician or the emergency medical technician in the ambulance help you make the decision about whether an aspirin's the right thing to do.