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This Woman Nearly Died After Her Daughter’s Wedding Triggered ‘Happy Heart Syndrome’

Doctors say overwhelming joy can trigger takotsubo cardiomyopathy, a rare condition often mistaken for a heart attack.

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Broken heart syndrome has a whole cultural mythology built around it. Happy heart syndrome, the lesser-known flip side, can be just as lethal—and most people have never heard of it.

A 65-year-old woman attended her daughter’s wedding and spent the next three days in chest pain and struggling to breathe. When she went to the emergency room, doctors initially suspected a heart attack. Her test results showed reduced blood flow to the heart, which typically points to a blood clot—but no clot existed. What they found instead was her left ventricle ballooning outward, a phenomenon that compromised the heart’s ability to pump blood and put her life at serious risk.

The reason? Extreme happiness. The case, published in Oxford Medical Case........

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