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“I need to go to the hospital... I think I'm having a heart attack."
"You said that last week..."
For six months, despite what felt like stabbing pains in her heart, weakness all over her body, and cramping in her left arm, no one would listen to Maria Haugen — not even her own doctor.
“At 26, I was mentally preparing to die,” Haugen, the founder and CEO of the women’s health self-advocacy app FoXX Health, tells Rescripted.
She thought she was having a six-month-long heart attack, yet medical professionals repeatedly dismissed her concerns, chalking her problems up to anxiety.
It wasn’t until Haugen, after relentlessly advocating for herself, met with a specialist who finally gave her the diagnosis she had been seeking: No, she wasn’t having a heart attack — and no, it wasn’t anxiety either. She had costochondritis, a condition whose symptoms mimic a heart attack.
This harrowing experience inspired Haugen to launch an app that would help prevent medical stories like hers from becoming the norm: FoXX Health, as Haugen describes it, “utilizes educational resources to create customized checklists to help women advocate for themselves” during doctor’s appointments. The app provides women with the tools they need for the most productive doctor’s visit possible.
This is Haugen’s story.
The six-month “heart attack”
“I didn't know what was wrong with me,” Haugen tells Rescripted. “I have always been extremely active, and I thought I overdid it.” Haugen saw her doctor and was dismissed with all forms of gender bias: “[The doctor] said I was simply stressed. [That,] as a woman, I was experiencing symptoms related to my cycle and the over-emotional anxiety our gender experiences.” She was also advised not to raise her heart rate as high as she usually did during her cycling classes. But Haugen simply felt her doctor was using “every excuse not to run more tests.”
Over the next six months, Haugen says she had what felt like heart attacks “at random times.” She stopped all activities, even going so far as to admit she was “afraid to drive. Hell, I was afraid to die.” Not only did Haugen feel like nobody was listening to her cries for help, but she couldn’t even get a second opinion without a referral: “My doctor wouldn't give me one,” she reveals.
So she took matters into her own hands. She did her own research and even trained herself on what to say at doctor’s appointments. This advocacy dedication would eventually lead to the creation of FoXX Health. “I had to understand how to make my doctor understand that this was not in my head,” she says. “It wasn't a panic attack. It wasn't anxiety.”
What is costochondritis?
After six months of advocating for herself, Haugen got her much-coveted referral to a specialist, who soon diagnosed her with costochondritis.
Costochondritis is intense inflammation in the cartilage that connects your ribs to your breastbone. This particular type of inflammation can make breathing or moving your chest extremely painful. People may believe they’re having a heart attack because the most common symptom of this condition is chest pain.
“The symptoms make you feel like you're having a heart attack,” Haugen tells Rescripted. “All the muscles around your heart constrict, making you lightheaded and weak.”
Costochondritis is usually diagnosed by ruling out other, more serious conditions. As scary as this condition sounds, rest assured that there is no correlation with heart attacks.
While there is no established cause for this condition, some experts believe that small, repeated stress (aka microtraumas) on the ribs over time can result in costochondritis. These microtraumas include:
- Chest or rib injuries
- Coughing or vomiting too hard
- Chest infections
- Intense physical activity without enough time to rest and recover
As for treatment, the recommended course of action is resting your chest and ribcage. This will allow the irritated cartilage time to heal. You can also take over-the-counter pain relievers like NSAIDs (nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) or acetaminophen.
Advocating for ourselves
Haugen says she cried upon receiving her costochondritis diagnosis: “Not from the pain, not for the journey, but for the relief,” she says. “For listening to myself and refusing to live this way. For being resourceful and for advocating for myself, no matter how slow. I moved forward in pain, but I moved forward.”
Following her medical ordeal, Haugen channeled everything she learned into creating FoXX Health. Now, instead of experiencing fear and helplessness at their healthcare appointments, women can feel empowered when they walk into the doctor’s office.
“We do not deserve to suffer simply because we are not believed,” she tells Rescripted. “Women should feel supported, but also [be] given the resources [to] advocate for [themselves] while healthcare providers [work] to improve their care.”
Learn more about FoXX Health here.
Sarene Leeds holds an M.S. in Professional Writing from NYU, and is a seasoned journalist, having written and reported on subjects ranging from TV and pop culture to health, wellness, and parenting over the course of her career. Her work has appeared in Rolling Stone, The Wall Street Journal, Vulture, SheKnows, and numerous other outlets. A staunch mental health advocate, Sarene also hosts the podcast “Emotional Abuse Is Real.” Subscribe to her Substack, the Critical Communicator, and follow her on Instagram, BlueSky, or Threads.