If you are feeling anxious about the condition of your heart, you are not alone. Heart disease accounted for nearly 18.6 million deaths worldwide in 2019. This is an increase of 17.1% over the last decade. That equates to 32% of all deaths. In America alone, some 655,000 die of heart disease each year, accounting for a quarter of all deaths.
According to the British Heart Foundation, the latest figures for the UK show that 167,737 people died from cardiovascular disease (CVD) in 2020. But the estimated number of people living with some form of CVD was over 7.6 million, of whom there were 6.4 million in England alone. Or, to put it another way, about 10% of the UK population.
One can easily see why this is so serious. Not only that, but many patients suffer few, if any, noticeable symptoms.
Heart disease can have several different symptoms including any of the following, or a combination:
- Fluttering in your chest.
- Racing heartbeat (tachycardia)
- Slow heartbeat (bradycardia)
- Chest pain or discomfort.
- Shortness of breath.
- Light-headedness.
- Dizziness.
- Fainting (syncope) or near fainting.
Chest pain or discomfort, a fluttering in your chest, or feeling of your heart being squeezed occurs when an area of your heart is receiving less oxygen than it needs to have. This is called angina, and of itself it is not life threatening. But then, neither is getting pinged by the NHS app. Yet both could lead to something more serious. This is why, if you start to have any of these symptoms you need to do something about it, and the first thing that you should do is to book an appointment with us here at Venturi Cardiology. We are the leading angina diagnosis centre in the Northwest, and we have the very latest equipment and diagnostic techniques that will enable us to pinpoint exactly what is causing your symptoms.
The first step is diagnosis: to ascertain the exact cause of the problem. After this, we will be able to advise you of the best way forward. This could be anything from cutting out smoking, to a change of diet, to a heart bypass. There are often several ways to reduce the risk of a heart attack considerably without resorting to surgery.
There are different types of angina, one of which has a regular pattern and lasts for perhaps five minutes. Another which may go on for many years. Fortunately, both types – long term or short blasts can both be treated quite easily with rest or medication.
Other angina symptoms can include a burning feeling in the chest which can spread to the shoulders, throat, neck, jaw, arms, back, and even the teeth. Symptoms can also include:
- indigestion
- heartburn
- weakness
- sweating
- nausea
- shortness of breath
- cramps.
Therefore, it is important to understand the exact reason for your symptoms. As the leading angina diagnostic centre in the Northwest, we are a natural first choice.
We can provide you with a number of different tests in order to make sure that we have covered every possible cause of your angina and so that we can prepare an individual plan for you in order to reduce the likelihood of a heart attack.
Of course, it may be that you are not suffering from angina but from another issue such as a heart murmur. This is something that can be heard through a stethoscope by one of our cardiologists and is like a whooshing sound. Very often these are harmless, but they can also be caused by a problem with one of the heart valves. We can provide you with an electrocardiogram test (ECG) which will show if there are any issues with your heart or its’ valves. If you should need some form of treatment this may be as simple as medication, or it could be that one of your heart valves needs to be replaced by surgery. This is nothing to worry about because it is a fairly common form of surgery these days. However, if you are suffering from any of the symptoms that we have mentioned, you need to get them checked out as soon as possible. For more information or to book a consultation click here
