A MAN was diagnosed with aortic dissection (Stanford A type) after feeling a tearing pain together with chest stuffiness and shortness of breath when he was in the restroom, Southern Metropolis Daily reported.

The 45-year-old man surnamed Yang in Shenzhen could not even move after he felt numb in his legs, the report said.

The pain eventually made it uncomfortable to sit or lay down after he was sent to a local hospital.

Doctors from the hospital treated Yang with an analgesic to ease his pain and began an electrocardiogram monitoring of his blood pressure and heart rate.

Yang gradually felt more like himself after the surgery, according to the report.

An aortic dissection is a serious condition in which the inner layer of the aorta, the large blood vessel branching off the heart, tears. Blood surges through the tear, causing the inner and middle layers of the aorta to separate.

If the blood-filled channel ruptures through the outside aortic wall, aortic dissection often becomes fatal. Patients might have a 50 percent risk of death if proper medical support is not provided within 48 hours.

Yang has had hypertension for five years. However, he did not give much thought about the disease and did not take medicine to lower his blood pressure.

Aortic dissection has been widely recognized to occur most often to people in their 60s and 70s. However, a young man born in the 1990s in Shenzhen experienced the disease in 2018, according to the report.

People with hypertension are vulnerable to aortic dissection. For them, the most important thing to avoid an aortic dissection is to control their blood pressure.

Other diseases including arteriosclerosis, Marfan syndrome, Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, congenital cardiovascular disease, severe trauma, syphilis and endocarditis might also cause an aortic dissection.

The most common symptom of aortic dissection is having a sudden and sharp pain in chest.  (Wang Jingli)