What is Heart Disease?
"Heart disease" can refer to many types of heart conditions, including heart attacks and strokes and the underlying heart conditions that cause them. Heart attacks and strokes are often fatal and debilitating. The goal of preventing or managing heart disease is to prevent heart attack or stroke. Heart disease includes a number of conditions, including the following:
- coronary artery disease
- ischemic heart disease
- atherosclerosis
- arrhythmia
- heart failure
- heart attack
- stroke
There are also heart conditions you are born with, called congenital heart defects, which are often detected in infancy or childhood and need to be managed your whole life, usually by a specialist like an pediatric or adult cardiologist. To learn more about these, check out the CDC's page, here.
Symptoms of Heart Disease
The symptoms of heart disease are often impossible to detect until a big event like a heart attack or stroke. That's why it's important to get preventive wellness exams, and to pay attention to your blood pressure and other labs the doctor might order to check for the underlying causes of heart disease like high blood pressure or high cholesterol.
If you do have symptoms, you might experience chest pain, fatigue, arrhythmia (that’s when you feel fluttering or palpitations in your chest), shortness of breath, or swelling of feet, ankles, legs, abdomen, or neck veins. Here’s a detailed list of the symptoms you might notice in your body that could be connected to heart disease and to heart attack or stroke:
- Chest pain, pressure, or discomfort
- Arm, neck, jaw or shoulderblade pain
- Shortness of breath
- Heartburn or indigestion
- Nausea or vomiting
- Sweating
- Dizziness
- Fatigue
- Swelling of feet, ankles, legs, abdomen, or neck veins
- Arrhythmia, or palpitations or fluttering feelings in the chest
Risk Factors for Heart Disease
If you have any of the following, you might be at increased risk for heart disease. Some of these conditions might be signs that your doctor can detect, but some of them will be evident to you, or you may know them from talking to your biological family about their medical history.
- Diabetes
- High blood pressure
- High cholesterol
- Overweight or obesity
- Unhealthy diet
- Physical inactivity
- Excessive alcohol use
- Smoking
- Family history of heart attack or stroke
Managing Heart Disease
If you've been diagnosed with heart disease or have had a cardiovascular event like a heart attack or stroke, you might find yourself on a lot of different heart medications. It's important to discuss these with your doctor so you understand the purpose of each of them, and to keep taking them as instructed. You might be able to stop taking them or reduce the amount you take if you can make enough lifestyle changes to improve your heart health, but you should always discuss it with your doctor first. Lifestyle changes for managing heart disease include changing your diet to one low in salt and saturated fat, exercising more, losing weight, quitting smoking, and reducing or eliminating alcohol use. Sometimes these changes aren't enough, and you still need to keep taking medications. Sometimes you need surgery to make sure your heart is stable. The type of surgery depends on the type of disease and how much damage has happened to your heart.
The best way to manage heart disease is to prevent it from happening in the first place by maintaining good cholesterol levels, healthy blood pressure, lots of physical activity, eating a healthy diet, reducing stress, and quitting tobacco or alcohol use. if you have diabetes, keeping your diabetes managed and your blood sugars under control can help you reduce your risk of heart disease.
Community Resources
If you’re worried about your heart health, talk to a primary care doctor or healthcare provider. They can assess your risk factors for heart attack or stroke and order any labs or tests you need. If you do have heart disease, they can refer you to a cardiologist and help coordinate your care. It’s also important to know your family medical history, so talk to your biological family members, like your parents and grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc, to find out what kind of risk runs in your family.
If you’re looking for resources for prevention, your doctor can help with that too! And in Alaska, we’re fortunate to have free programs for weight loss, prevention and management of diabetes, lowering blood pressure, and quitting smoking. Go to freshstart.alaska.gov to learn more.
To schedule a visit with a primary care doctor or health provider, even if you don’t have insurance or a lot of money for doctor’s visits, call us today at 907-455-4567, option 1.
For more information on heart disease, check out our blog topics!
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