How is Your Heart?
The term heart disease covers a wide range of disorders that affect the heart. In some of these disorders, it is the blood vessels that have changed and are now causing trouble. Coronary artery disease, congenital heart defects and heart rhythm problems are just three of the this group. Some will use the term heart disease when referring to cardiovascular disease although this term descries the narrowing or blocked blood vessels in the heart. There are other heart conditions that will involve the heart valves, or infections that can also fall into the group of heart diseases.
Symptoms of heart disease will include a shortness of breath, chest pain and a weakness, coldness or numbness in the arms or legs. If the arm or legs are involved, then this is because the blood vessels in them have become narrow. The diagnosis of heart disease can then be changed to cardiovascular disease as it gets worse and then causes a heart attack or chest pain. There can also be cardiac death so it is important to get to a hospital fast if your are experiencing any symptoms of a heart attack. These signs can be things like chest discomfort that will last for a few minutes. These discomforts can go away but return later. This chest pain or discomfort has been described as a pressure, fullness or even a squeezing feeling. This feeling can then to go your neck, back or jaw and you may experience a shortness of breath. You can also feel lightheaded and you might even break out into a cold sweat.
If you are with someone who is experience these symptoms, don’t just wait to see if it gets worse, call 911 right away. The ambulance can probably get to you quicker than it will take you to drive this person to the hospital. They are trained to revive a person who has a stopped heart . To know if a heart attack has happened, a doctor will use an electrocardiogram or maybe a ECG to see if there are any problems with the workings of the heart. There is also a test that will tell the doctor that some of the enzymes in the bloodstream are not at the level they should be. Blood test will either confirm or deny the early stages of evaluation. This is sometimes called the cardiac enzyme test or some call them heart damage markers.
