Heart Disease Symptoms
What is Heart Disease?
The heart is collection of muscles which gets energy from the blood carrying nutrients and oxygen. Constant supply of blood keeps the working of heart properly. Most of the people think that heart disease is a condition but it is group of conditions that affects on function and structure of the heart. When some fatty materials, scar tissues and calcium are combined in to the arteries which provides blood to the heart then occurs coronary artery disease.
Causes for Heart Disease:
Heart disease is some time called as macro vascular disease which causes stroke, peripheral arterial disease, or the heart attack. Peripheral arterial disease (PAD) is a condition that caused because of narrowing of the arteries which supplies blood to the abdomen, legs, arms, pelvis and the neck.
Heart disease has been found very rarely in the person who has mental or physical trails. Following are the risk factors responsible for causing the heart disease:
- Heredity: There are lot of cases that shows the heart disease because of person's grandfather, father, mother, brothers etc who have suffered from same disease. The heart disease named as coronary artery disease is shown mainly in families. For diagnosing the disease, family history is very important.
- Stress: Heart disease is based on personality of the person. This is also called as personality disease or high executive disease, which strikes the persons with certain types of personalities. The other factors responsible for causing the heart disease are interpersonal relationship, family responsibilities, financial worries, drinking, smoking and eating habits, leisure interests, etc.
- Smoking: It is commonly occurred in the workers who have smokes cigarette regularly and heavily.
Risk factors for the heart disease:
- Alcohol use
- Atherosclerosis
- Autoimmune conditions
- Bacterial infection
- Congenital abnormalities (present at birth)
- Cocaine use
- Diabetes
- Hypertension
- Diet, especially when high in saturated fat and cholesterol
- Injury or trauma
- Smoking
- Sedentary lifestyle
- Thyroid dysfunction (under and overactive)
- Viral infection
- Toxins, such as mercury, and sometimes chemotherapy drugs or HIV/AIDS drugs
Diet and obesity: The fifty percent of the people having over weight suffering from the heart disease. Similarly the person that takes the diet with amount of fat which also causes the heart disease.
Animal originated products are saturated fats such as milk, butter, cream, cheese, fat, meat, etc and that raises the level of cholesterol. Vegetable oriented products are known as unsaturated fats are which are useful for lowering the cholesterol in blood and use the products such as cottonseed oil sunflower, maize oil, oil and fat of fish.
Heart Disease Symptoms:
There are different types of heart diseases and each heart disease has different symptoms even though some of the heart disease symptoms are similar. Heart disease symptoms are depends on type of disease and severity of the disease. Following are different types of heart diseases and different heart diseases symptoms:
Coronary Artery Disease:
Angina is the most general symptom of coronary artery disease. Angina may be related with heaviness, discomfort, pressure, aching, fullness, burning, squeezing or the painful feeling in the chest. Angina is generally felt in the chest but some of the times felt in arms, shoulders, throat, neck, back or jaw also.
Other symptom which may occur in coronary artery disease contains the following:
- Shortness of breath
- A faster heartbeat
- Irregular heart beats, skipped beats or a "flip-flop" feeling in your chest
- Weakness or dizziness
- Sweating
- Nausea
Heart Attack (Myocardial Infarction or MI):
Symptoms can include:
- Discomfort, pressure, heaviness, or pain in the chest, arm or below the breastbone
- Fullness, indigestion or choking feeling (may feel like heartburn)
- Discomfort radiating to the back, jaw, throat or arm
- Extreme weakness, anxiety or shortness of breath
- Sweating, nausea, vomiting or dizziness
- Rapid or irregular heartbeats
At the time of heart attack, symptoms last for thirty minutes or more than that. Mild discomfort occurs at very initial stage but increases to the severe pains. Without having any symptoms, some of the people can have heart attack. Silent MI can occurs in many people but mainly occur in diabetics patient..
Do not make delay if you think that you have heart attack. Make emergency call on 911 which is available in most of the areas. For less amount of damage to heart, immediately take the treatment.
Arrhythmias:
Arrhythmias symptoms are described below:
- Feeling of skipped heart beats, fluttering or "flip-flops," or feeling that your heart is "running away").
- Extreme weakness, anxiety or shortness of breath
- Pounding in your chest.
- Dizziness or feeling light-headed.
- Shortness of breath.
- Fainting.
- Weakness or fatigue.
- Chest discomfort.
Atrial Fibrillation:
Atrial fibrillation (AF) is one of the type of arrhythmia. The people suffering from atrial fibrillation experiences the following symptoms:
- Heart palpitations (a sudden pounding, fluttering, or racing feeling in the heart).
- Dizziness (feeling faint or light-headed).
- Lack of energy; tired.
- Shortness of breath (difficulty breathing during activities of daily living).
- Chest discomfort (pain, pressure, or discomfort in the chest).
Some patient suffering from atrial fibrillation does not show any symptoms.
Heart Valve Disease:
Heart valve disease symptoms are given below:
- Shortness of breath and/or difficulty catching your breath. You may notice this most when you are active (doing your normal daily activities) or when you lie down flat in bed.
- Discomfort in your chest. You may feel a pressure or weight in your chest with activity or when going out in cold air.
- Weakness or dizziness.
- Palpitations (this may feel like a rapid heart rhythm, irregular heartbeat, skipped beats or a flip-flop feeling in your chest).
- If valve disease causes heart failure, symptoms may include:
- Quick weight gain (a weight gain of two or three pounds in one day is possible).
- Swelling of your ankles, feet or abdomen. Swelling may also occur in your belly, which may cause you to feel bloated.
There are always no any serious symptoms of heart valve disease or even the people do not have any symptoms who are suffering from that disease.
Diagnosis of heart disease:
Testing is very important for deciding the symptoms are related to heart disease or it is related with other conditions. This is also important for deciding heart disease symptoms are related with which type of heart disease. It determines whether it is chronic or acute.
Patient with acute coronary syndrome suggests heart disease because of lack of flow of blood which is evaluated with different blood tests and other laboratory tests. These are used for determining the pain and harshness of that disease.
Following tests are very important for diagnosing the heart disease:
Laboratory Blood Tests:
When the muscle cells are damaged then proteins and cardiac biomarkers gets released which are generally requested at the time of acute coronary syndrome symptoms as like pain in chest, jaw, abdomen, neck, back, arms, or nausea, breathlessness, and the lightheadedness.
With this test, other tests are also necessary such as:
- Stress testing
- CT (Computerized tomography) scan
- Chest X-ray
- Continuous ECG monitoring
- PET (Positron emission tomography)
- MRI (Magnetic resonance imaging)
- Radionuclide imaging
- Coronary angiography
- Cardiac catheterization
Treatment of heart disease:
Treatment is based on heart disease symptoms and severity of the disease. For the acute conditions as like heart attack, needs immediate medical involvement for minimizing the damage of the heart. For the chronic conditions, doctor suggests patient to modify their food, minimizes weight, exercise under the supervision, and manage the stress.
For managing and controlling the heart disease symptoms, drugs are required. For replacing the defective heart valves, exact congenital abnormalities and for bypassing blocked arteries, surgical procedures are useful. For the infection, take the antimicrobial drugs.
