Experiencing Heart Symptoms? Read This for Tips

Experiencing Heart Symptoms? Read This for Tips

Heart attack symptoms or also known as a myocardial infarction is the death of heart muscle from the sudden blockage of a coronary artery by a blood clot. Coronary arteries are blood vessels that supply the heart muscle with blood and oxygen. Blockage of a coronary artery deprives the heart muscle of blood and oxygen thus causing injury to the heart muscle.

This injury to the heart muscle causes chest pain and chest pressure sensation and if the blood flow is not restored to the heart muscle within 20 to 40 minutes irreversible death of the heart muscle will begin to occur. Muscle continues to die for six to eight hours at which time the heart attack usually is “complete.” The dead heart muscle is eventually replaced by scar tissue.

Heart Symptoms Causes:

Atherosclerosis is process by which plaques of cholesterol are deposited in the walls of arteries. Cholesterol plaques cause hardening of the arterial walls and narrowing of the inner channel of the artery.

Arteries that are narrowed by atherosclerosis cannot deliver enough blood to maintain normal function of the parts of the body they supply. Atherosclerosis of the arteries that furnish blood to the brain can lead to vascular dementia or stroke.

Atherosclerosis can remain silent in a lot of people for years or decades. It can begin as early as the teenage years but symptoms or health problems usually do not arise until later in adulthood when the arterial narrowing becomes severe.

Smoking cigarettes, high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol, and diabetes mellitus can accelerate atherosclerosis and lead to the earlier onset of symptoms and complications, particularly in those people who have a family history of early atherosclerosis.

Coronary atherosclerosis is the atherosclerosis that causes hardening and narrowing of the coronary arteries. Diseases caused by the reduced blood supply to the heart muscle from coronary atherosclerosis are called coronary heart diseases (CHD).

Coronary heart diseases include heart attacks, sudden unexpected death, chest pain (angina), abnormal heart rhythms, and heart failure due to weakening of the heart muscle.

Conclusion:

At the first sign of heart attack symptoms acting fast can save lives and limit damage to the heart. Treatment is most effective when started within 1 hour of the beginning of symptoms. If you think you or someone may be having a heart attack it is advice to call your emergency numbers within a few minutes or 5 at the most of the start of symptoms.

In case the symptoms stop completely in less than 5 minutes still call your doctor. Take a nitroglycerin pill if your doctor has prescribed this type of medicine.

If you’re looking for a natural solution to prevent heart attack and stroke, the we recommend you to check EDTA Oral Chelation Therapy, which has proven to be very effective in removing arterial plaque that accumulated on your arteries wall.

What Causes Heart Attacks and Heart Failure

Causes of Heart Attacks

We have all heard of heart attacks, this article sheds light on what causes heart attacks. A heart attack has many causes: however one occurs due to lack of oxygen rich blood in the heart coronary arteries are the blood vessels which supply the heart with oxygen and blood, blockage of coronary arteries causes injury to heart muscle.
So what causes heart attacks ?


Atherosclerosis

This is usually a gradual process in which plaques or collections of cholesterol get deposited around artery walls. These plaques harden the artery walls, narrowing the lumen which is the inner channel of the artery. In many people, atherosclerosis can go unnoticed for years, in some cases beginning even from teenage years. The symptoms and health problems do not occur until later on in life when the narrowing of the artery becomes severe. High blood pressure, high cholesterol, cigarette smoking and diabetes are just some of the things which accelerate atherosclerosis, especially in people with a family history of heart attacks.

Artery Spasm

An artery spasm is caused by constrictions of arteries which prevent oxygen rich blood from reaching the heart. The spasms are often caused by blood clots, fatty acid build ups on the artery wall and blood clots caused by plaque. Though spasms, don’t cause heart attacks each time the artery is affected but an artery spasm can cause permanent heart damage.

Drug Use

Drugs which speed up the cardiovascular system have been known to induce heart attacks. Cocaine usage on a regular basis can cause heart attacks due to the high dosage used to achieve the high. methamphetamine's have also been known to cause heart failure.

Causes of Heart Failure

Heart failure usually occurs after other conditions have weakened and damaged the heart. Over time the heart becomes too weak to perform its duty of pumping blood to the body. The ventricles which are the heart’s pumping chambers become stiff and are unable to properly fill in between the beats. The heart muscle weakens to the point that it cannot pump blood effectively throughout the body. Heart failure begins on the left ventricle. Signs of heart failure include: fatigue, chronic coughing, a rapid/ irregular heartbeat, shortness of breath amongst other symptoms.

Heart disease is a term used to cover conditions such as coronary artery disease, congestive heart failure, cardiac arrest, congenital heart diseases and heart attack.The survival rate of cardiac arrest outside hospital is less than 2%. It takes only four to six minutes after a cardiac arrest for a person to experience brain death followed by loss of life.Most heart attacks occur in the morning. Reason being the stress hormones is higher and blood is usually thicker hence harder to pump as one is partially dehydrated.
Heart disease risk factors

Most heart disease risk factors are controllable with simple lifestyle changes. Some of these include: Smoking, unhealthy diets, stress, physical fitness as well as high blood cholesterol and triglyceride levels which is a type of fat found in blood. Uncontrollable risk factors include: a family history of heart disease, age and gender.
Heart problems if left untreated can lead to death.

Having known what causes heart attacks, it is important to consult a doctor in case of any of the above signs.

Coronary heart disease

Coronary heart disease

Coronary heart disease is also known by some other names such as coronary artery disease, ischemic heart disease and atherosclerotic heart disease. Among the various types of heart disease, Coronary heart disease is one of the most common one. It is caused when the atheromatous plaques are accumulated in the the artery walls. As a result of this accumulations atheromatous plaques , the supply of oxygen as well as the nutrients to the muscles of the heart is ceased.

The signs of coronary heart disease can easily be identified in the early stage. But the problems remain that in spite of the signs, no proof or evidence of coronary heart disease is found in its early stage. It therefore, very often results in heart attack all of a sudden. Coronary heart disease has been found to be one of the most common causes of heart or cardiac attacks, often leading to sudden death.

The records in the Guinness Book of Records reveal that Northern Ireland happens to be the most affected country by coronary heart disease, in comparison to the other countries in the world. One more interesting thing related to the coronary heart disease is that in the United State of America, one in every three women, aged 40 or above, and one in every two men, aged 40 and above, are found to be affected by coronary heart disease, either severely or mildly.

The risk factors related to coronary heart disease, are excessive smoking, hypercholesterolemia, hypertension, type A behavioral patterns and hyperglycemia. There are also other risk factors of coronary heart disease. One of them is high levels of fibrinogen, also known as hemostatic factors. Hariditaru factors have also been found to be responsible for coronary heart disease.

There are some indirect risk factors of coronary heart disease. In spite of their being indirectly related to coronary heart disease, they prove to be very much significant. Some of such indirect, and yet, significant factors of coronary heart disease are obesity, lowness of diet in antioxidants, richly saturated fat diets, excess of stress and the absences or lack of physical exercise. Men who are aged over 60 and women who are aged more than 65 are very much prone to coronary heart disease. It is one of the commonest diseases in the Western countries.

Prevention of coronary heart disease is not very much unique. If the risk factors can be avoided, coronary heart disease can automatically be avoided. Keep your body in regular exercise. Do not grow the habit of smoking or consuming alcohols. Even if you have the habit, do try to give it up. Addiction to any kind of drugs will be most welcoming for the coronary heart disease. Always try to keep your mind calm and cool. A person with a routined life with less mental stress, is very hard to be affected by coronary heart disease.

Stents in the heart

Stents in the heart are small medical devices (small mesh tubes) used to treat narrowed arteries (arteries are blood vessels that carry blood from heart to the tissues). The procedure of placing stents in the heart is called angioplasty. Angioplasty alone, without stent placement is associated with a high risk of recurrence of the arterial blockage, in months or years after the procedure. That is why placing stents in the heart solved this disadvantage of the angioplasty, maintaining blood vessels opened and avoiding heart surgery. The risk that the arteries will renarrow is 10-20%  in the first year after angioplasty, while in the absence of a stent the risk is twice as much.

Stents in the heart are usually made of metal mesh or fabric (these ones are used in larger arteries). Some of these stents contain a special substance that prevent blood from coagulating and are called drug-eluting stents.

How are stents in the heart placed? 

Doctors use a balloon inside the artery to compress the plaque (deposits of fats in the arteries wall, also called atherosclerosis) and widen the passage (the arterial lumen through which will flow blood). After this, they place the stent in order to maintain the passage (the artery lumen) opened.

How do we prepare patients before placing stents in the heart?

Patients should be well informed about the stents in the heart procedure, about the risks and the special precautions. These are a few questions u must always ask your doctor about:

•  Why is it performed?
•  How is it performed?
•  What are the risks and precautions of this procedure?
•  Is there any other alternative?
•  What happens if I refuse this procedure?
•  Always sign a consent paper.

Why are stents in the heart placed for?

The purpose for stents in the heart placement is to keep the arterial lumen opened and allow blood to flow, in this way tissues will receive enough blood and the symptoms of ischemia (oxygen deprivation) will be relieved.

• For carotid arteries blockage: fat deposits in carotid arteries wall (also called plaques, they are a manifestation of the disease named atherosclerosis) can determine neurologic symptoms like dizziness, fainting, headache, memory and concentration problems and in severe cases even stroke.
• For coronary vessels (blood vessels that supply blood for heart tissues): a special tube called catheter is introduced in the femoral artery (the main artery of the lower limb) and it is conducted in the arterial system until it reaches the coronary arteries. In that moment, a special substance is pumped into the catheter in order to view the arteries and the blockage. This catheter has a tiny balloon on its tip, which is inflated in the narrowed area, compressing the atheroma (the plaque of fats from the artery wall that blocks blood flow) and enlarging the lumen. After this a stent may be placed to keep the lumen opened.
• For kidney or leg arteries, aneurysm of the aorta.
  

What are the common precautions after placing stents in the heart?

•  blood clotting precautions: in order to prevent blood clotting, patients with stents in the heart have to take antiplatelet medication (aspirin, clopidogrel)
•  if the stent is made of metal, than the patient can’t have MRI (magnetic resonance imaging)
•  avoid vigorous effort early after the stent placement procedure.
  

What risks are related to stents in the heart?

•  restenosis- blood vessel becomes blocked and narrow again, despite the angioplasty procedure
•  about 1 or 2 percent of the patients with a stented artery are at risk of developing a cloth at the stent site; the consequence of this complication can be a heart attack. This complication is more frequent in the first year after stent placement and can be prevented by antiplatelet medication (like aspirin, clopidogrel).
•  bleeding at the site of the catheter insertion into the skin
•  damage of the blood vessel produced by the catheter
•  irregular heart beats
•  infection or allergic reaction (due to the substance used to view the arterial lumen)

Stents in the heart brought a significant contribution in cardiology, saving and improving life in patients with heart attack and coronary disease.