The mere mention of the term heart attack is enough to make a person’s blood run cold. Undoubtedly, you know individuals who have suffered heart attacks, even though they do not fit into the typical category for a person who would have a heart attack. They may have had a heart attack with absolutely no warning symptoms. When a person succumbs to coronary artery disease, it’s usually because their body has gone through a complicated process that began when they were a lot younger. As the years passed, their artery walls became full of plaque. This led to their artery walls becoming thinner, and blood flow to the heart was greatly restricted. This can happen without a person knowing it. All of this underscores the importance of having preventative healthcare with an echocardiogram. The earlier artery problems are caught, the better chances we have of helping a person avoid a heart attack.
Your preventive healthcare should include annual heart screenings. You want our team to be looking for heart disease when they do your annual physical exam. During this exam, we are going to pay close attention to your femoral and carotid arteries. We will listen to these through a stethoscope and also examine your pulse, your respiration, and your blood pressure levels.
These tests will also include a review of your cholesterol levels. Your blood sugar will be factored in. Our doctor may ask you some very specific questions about any breathing problems you may have had or past pain in your chest. Our doctor is going to be interested in your medical history, as well as the medical history of your family. This is because heart disease is a genetic thing. If you have family members who have had heart attacks in their younger years, it’s likely that you are at risk for the same issue. Our doctor will also want to know about your lifestyle. How frequently do you exercise? Are you a smoker? Do you use recreational drugs? It is important to be honest with our doctor during these questions.
Our doctor can use an echocardiogram to examine your heart. The purpose of this test is to monitor how well your heart is functioning. The results produced by this test will help our doctor determine if you have had a heart attack in the past, and it can also look at abnormalities in your heart’s chambers, giving our team the information they need in order to lay out a treatment plan to keep you as healthy as possible.
You do not want to take your cardiovascular health for granted. Take preventative healthcare measures. Get an echocardiogram along with other tests to keep your heart as healthy as possible. Get in touch with us at Cardiology Consultants of Southwest Florida to get started. Contact us today to book an appointment at our office in Fort Myers!
