It’s never too early or too late to protect your heart. How you live early in life affects your risk of heart disease as you age. And seeking cardiology care when you’re older can still prevent heart disease or slow the progression of existing conditions.
February is American Heart Month, so it’s a good time to remind you that preventive care is life-saving, and consulting a cardiologist is often the first step.
When should you see a heart specialist? When you want to prevent heart disease, get help for heart symptoms, or receive long-term management for a heart condition.
At Memphis Vein Center, board-certified cardiologist Kishore K. Arcot, MD, FACC, and our team offer exceptional care at every stage. Here, we explain four reasons to consult a cardiologist.
Young and middle-aged adults seldom wonder if they should see a cardiologist. If they think about it, they usually figure that cardiovascular disease is a problem for older adults.
That seems reasonable since heart attacks are most likely to occur after age 65. But there are two main problems with that approach.
First, the conditions that cause heart disease progressively develop over many years. Even teens are vulnerable, with 7% of those between 6-19 having high cholesterol.
And second, people seldom have early warning signs that an underlying problem is slowly damaging their heart.
While heart attacks strike out of the blue, the conditions responsible for them exist long before the attack. Early medical care can prevent heart disease and stop or slow disease progression.
You can prevent most heart diseases by identifying your risk and taking steps to protect your health. The more risk factors you have, the more essential it is to lower them to avoid heart and blood vessel problems.
The risk factors for heart disease include:
You don’t need to evaluate your risk factors alone. Cardiologists routinely do risk assessments and offer screenings for conditions that cause heart disease.
If we uncover any concerns, we have diagnostics in the office, like ultrasound, to accurately identify heart problems.
Seeing a cardiologist is essential if you have heart disease symptoms. It doesn’t matter if your symptoms are mild or come and go. Symptom intensity doesn’t always reflect the severity of the underlying condition.
Though your symptoms depend on the condition, heart disease causes:
Don’t wait to schedule a heart checkup with a cardiologist if you experience any of these symptoms.
Heart disease management includes preventive care and long-term management.
Preventing the conditions that cause heart disease (overweight, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, and kidney disease) is the key to protecting your heart.
In most cases, these conditions improve with lifestyle adjustments. But if changing your diet, increasing exercise, losing weight, and stopping smoking don’t help, we may need to prescribe medication.
We can’t cure heart disease and its underlying conditions once they develop. Instead, we provide long-term management to stop them from progressing. We implement an individualized care plan and schedule routine checkups to monitor your health.
Like preventive care, managing a chronic disease includes lifestyle changes and medications. You may need an interventional procedure to treat issues like clogged arteries.
Call our Memphis, Tennessee, center or click the online scheduler if you have questions, want a risk assessment, or need heart disease treatment.
