Queen's Brian May reveals he suffered heart attack

Katy Clifton25 May 2020
The Weekender

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Queen legend Brian May has revealed he suffered a heart attack and was rushed to hospital.

The 72-year-old posted on Instagram about the heart attack on Instagram on Monday, saying it happened last month.

The guitarist wrote: "My medical adventures! Hmm ... Sheer Heart Attack eh? Well, I think I always worried a little bit about that album title. I wondered if it might upset some people who had actually had heart attacks.

"I’m actually quite relieved now that I’m in that club - and I don’t find it upsetting at all! Take. care folks.

"And ... why did those discs in my spine get so squished? Well I think 50 years of running around with a guitar strap over my left shoulder holding a heavy guitar might have something to do with it! But it probably WAS all worth it!"

In the video he shared, May added: "I told you I had a ripped muscle and that was the way I was diagnosed and we thought it was like a bizarre gardening accident.

"I had an MRI and yes I did have a rip in my gluteus maximus and it's so easy to make a connection, there's a rip there so that must be the cause of the pain, end of story. And no other tests were done.

"Now a week later I'm still in agony, I mean real agony. I wanted to jump at some points. I could not believe the pain. And people are saying 'that's not like a ripped muscle', so eventually I had another MRI.

"But this one I had one of the lower spine and sure enough we would discover that I had a compressed sciatic nerve, quite severely compressed, which is why I felt like someone had been putting a screwdriver in my back the entire time. It was excruciating."

He added: "So that's one side of the story, and I'm a lot better now. I'm free of that terrible pain that actually destroys your mind.

'"But the rest of the story is a little more bizarre. I was shocked, I thought I was a healthy guy. Everyone says I've got a great blood pressure and I keep fit, I bike, good diet.

"I had, in the middle of the whole saga, I had a small heart attack. I say small, it's not something that did me any harm. It was about 40 minutes of pain in the chest and tightness. It's that feeling in the arms and sweating."

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