Queen guitarist Brian May has revealed that he recently suffered a heart attack and was rushed to the hospital, where doctors discovered that he had three blocked arteries in his heart. He’s doing just fine after having surgery to insert three stents, but the whole saga sounded pretty dramatic as May shared it during an Instagram Live session this week.
- Brian May didn’t actually go to the hospital over the heart attack. In fact, what took him there was an incident in which he tore the muscles in his buttocks, an experience which left him in “agony.” At the hospital, he had an MRI which revealed the compressed sciatic nerve causing him pain. It was so bad, he compared it to “putting a screwdriver in my back.” Yikes!
- He was experiencing chest pains. May did have pain and tightness in his chest, and after doing some more digging, doctors realized he had a small heart attack. “In the middle of the whole saga of the painful backside, I had a small heart attack. I say small, it’s not something that did me any harm,” he said on Instagram. “It was about 40 minutes of pain in the chest and tightness. It’s that feeling in the arms and sweating.”
- Brian May was “very near death.” While his heart attack was relatively minor, the fact that he had one at all means his life was in danger. “I turned out to have three arteries which were congested and in danger of blocking the blood to my heart,” he said. He revealed that after ignoring the pressure to have open heart surgery and instead opting for stents, he feels like a new man.
- He’s in “good shape” now and feels better than ever. “When I came around, it was as if nothing had happened,” he recalled of the procedure to insert the stents. “I couldn’t feel they had been in here. I couldn’t feel anything and I still can’t, it’s been amazing. It’s an incredible operation done by the right skillful person and I thank them from the bottom of my heart.” He added, “I think I’m in good shape for some time now.”
