Nikki, a TikToker and content creator, has an account with her husband, Marty, where they share aspects of their family life with followers.
But in a video uploaded on 1 February, the mother-of-two revealed that she had experienced a heart attack, after dismissing initial signs before it happened.
The 46-year-old believed it was perimenopause at worst, but the medical emergency took place around a week after she started feeling the symptoms.
Chest pain and shooting sensations down your left arm can indicate a heart attack (Getty Stock Image)
In a viral video that has garnered over 7.7 million views, the Houston native – who had no prior health conditions – said it all began with a sore left shoulder.
Nikki explained: “It felt like I was sleeping on it wrong. I thought it was possibly a frozen shoulder from perimenopause.
“Then the day before I had my heart attack, I woke up in the morning and my shoulder was sore again. I felt like I was going to throw up.”
In just 15 minutes, she was over the nauseous feeling and she thought nothing of it – until it returned on the day of her emergency.
Believing it was the same thing, she made a coffee and sat down, only to feel her chest tighten, and pain start to shoot down from her shoulder down to her arm – an obvious sign of cardiac arrest.
“At that point, I held my husband up and told him ‘Don’t go to work yet, I’m really not feeling that well. I’m going to jump in the shower and see if that helps me feel better’,” Nikki explained.
The mum ignored pain in her arm and chest in the week leading up to the heart attack (TikTok/@martyandnikki)
The mum recalled that she felt better and had a doctor’s appointment for an unrelated issue that morning anyway so told them what had happened.
The doctor told her to go straight to the emergency room if it happened again, and not in that moment as she ‘wasn’t experiencing any symptoms and they probably weren’t going to be able to see what was going on’.
But then, within an hour of leaving, Nikki said ‘the feelings started all over again’.
The 46-year-old explained: “The arm pain was radiating all the way down. My chest felt like it was being squeezed as tight as you could squeeze it.
“I started to feel sick again, I texted my husband and said the feeling came back and that I was one street away from the emergency room.”
Somehow managing to drive to the nearby hospital, she went to the counter and demanded that someone look at her heart ‘right this second’.
“At that point, I was shaking. There was a male nurse who then peeked round the corner and saw me and saved my life,” she explained.
“He saw me, he waved me back and within seconds that we knew I was having a heart attack.”
Luckily, since posting the video, Nikki has updated worried fans with her recovery, saying that she feels much better now.
While doctors had no idea about the cause of her heart attack due to no blockages or build up in her arteries, it took a trip to a women’s heart specialist to discover what happened.
She headed to The Texas Heart Institute and was told that it was the ‘perfect storm’ of perimenopause with illness all at once, with no genetic link made.
The mum also revealed that scans since the incident suggest that there may be lasting damage to her heart, though further tests must be carried out first.
Feeling lightheaded, dizzy, sweaty, and overwhelmingly anxious are also symptoms of a heart attack, according to the NHS.
The NHS advises to call 999 immediately if you think someone might be having a heart attack.
