What is infarction?

Infarction is when part of your body gets stuck without its usual fuel, and it can't work properly anymore.

Imagine you're eating a big plate of spaghetti, that’s like getting energy from food. Now imagine one of your arms suddenly couldn’t feel the spaghetti because the straw that brings the sauce to your arm got blocked, like when a toy car gets stuck in a tunnel. That’s what happens with infarction, the fuel (like blood) can't get through to a part of your body.

If it's your heart that gets stuck without fuel, you might feel like you're running a race but someone took away your shoes, it’s hard to keep going. That’s called a heart infarction, or heart attack.

Sometimes, clots (like tiny pieces of chewed-up gum) get stuck in the tubes that bring fuel to different parts of your body. If the clot is big enough and it blocks all the traffic, well, that part of your body might be in trouble until help comes.

So infarction is just a fancy way of saying "a part of your body got stuck without its energy supply."