Congenital heart disease (CHD) is a broad term, which is used to describe several cardiac defects that may be found at birth. Congenital means that you’re born with the defect. Some congenital heart defects might not cause any problems. Complex defects, however, can cause life-threatening complications.

CHD is the most prevalent inborn disorder found in new-born babies. It is estimated that CHD may occur in up to as many as 13 in every 1000 live births.

Some Risk Factors Associated with CHD

Several factors have been implicated in the development of CHD. One such risk factor is having a positive family history. There are also certain environmental factors that play a role in the development of congenital heart disease.

Your genes. Congenital heart disease appears to run in families (inherited) and is associated with many genetic syndromes.

Rubella (German Measles). Having rubella during pregnancy may affect how the baby’s heart develops while in the womb.

Diabetes. Having type 1 or type 2 diabetes during pregnancy also may affect a baby’s heart development.

Alcohol & Smoking. A mother may also put her unborn child at risk by consuming alcohol and/or smoking during pregnancy.

SEE ALSO: Heart Conditions & Pregnancy – Risks You Should Know About

Certain Medications. Taking certain medications while pregnant can cause congenital heart disease and other birth defects. Keep your doctor informed about the medications you take.

Signs and Symptoms

Some congenital heart diseases cause no signs or symptoms. For some people, signs or symptoms occur later in life. In some cases, the infant may have fast heartbeat with a corresponding fast rate of breathing.

In some swelling around the eyes, abdomen, or legs can be observed. Common congenital heart disease symptoms in adults include:

• Abnormal heart rhythms (arrhythmias)
• A bluish tint to the skin, lips and fingernails (cyanosis)
• Shortness of breath
• Tiring quickly upon exertion
• Swelling of body tissue or organs (edema)

Adult congenital heart disease and pregnancy

Women with mild congenital heart disease can have a successful pregnancy. However, some women with complex congenital heart defects are advised against pregnancy. Talk to your doctor if you are thinking about pregnancy.

Management & Treatment of Congenital Heart Disease

Not all CHDs are life threatening. Some may be mild and heal of their own. For example, eptal defects may close spontaneously over time and in rare case require specialized surgical intervention.

More importantly, CHDs are managed according to the type and severity of the defect. CHDs if caught early and referred to tertiary care without delay, one can achieve normal cardiac functions.

“Heart disease is often thought to be more of a problem for men. More than one in three women is living with some form of cardiovascular disease.”

We can change this because 80 percent of cardiac and stroke events may be prevented with education and action. Fortunately, by learning more about the heart disease and their unique symptoms, women can begin to reduce their risks.

Heart attack symptoms in women

Some type of chest pain, pressure or discomfort – these are the common symptoms of heart attack in men and women. But chest pain is not most noticeable symptoms particularly in woman. And it’s possible to have a heart attack without chest pain. Below are some symptoms unrelated to chest pain:

• Neck, jaw, shoulder, upper back or abdominal discomfort
• Shortness of breath
• Pain in one or both arms
• Nausea or vomiting
• Sweating
• Light-headedness or dizziness
• Unusual fatigue
• Indigestion

These symptoms may not be as noticeable as chest pain. Women tend to have symptoms more often while resting or when asleep than in men. Also, women don’t always recognize their symptoms as those of a heart attack, they tend to show up in emergency room after heart damage has been occurred.

If you or anyone you know, have above mentioned symptoms, call for emergency medical help immediately.

Heart disease risk factor for women

Several traditional risk factors for coronary artery disease — such as high cholesterol, high blood pressure and obesity — affect both women and men. But there are certain other factors that play a bigger role in developing heart diseases in women:

• Diabetes
• Mental stress and depression
• Smoking
• Physical inactivity
• Pregnancy complications
• Family history of early heart disease
• Inflammatory diseases

How women can reduce their risk of heart disease

We all know and that is simple to answer that is “living a healthy lifestyle can definitely help reduce the risk of heart diseases not only in women but in men as well. Try these #IAmHeartHealthy habits:

Quit Smoking & Alcohol. If you don’t smoke or drink, don’t start. Try to avoid even secondhand smoke, which is equally dangerous for blood vessels.

Exercise to reduce the risk. Of course this is general for all. Study recommends 30 minutes a day, five days a week. So start slowly and build up.

Manage your stress. Stress can cause your arteries to tighten, which can increase your risk of heart disease.

Maintain a healthy weight. Overweight and obesity are more common in women. If you’re overweight, losing even a few pounds can lower blood pressure and reduce the risk of diabetes. Having a normal body mass index (BMI) is helpful.

Managing other health conditions. Keep your blood pressure, cholesterol and diabetes under control.

SEE ALSO: Healthy Lifestyle Can Ease the Risk of Genetic Heart Disease

Is treatment for heart disease in women, different than in men?

In general, heart disease treatment in women and in men is similar. It can include medications, angioplasty and stenting, or coronary bypass surgery.

Angioplasty and stenting, commonly used treatments for heart attack, work for both men and women. But for coronary bypass surgery, women are more likely than men to have complications.

The more a woman knows about heart disease, better the chance she has to beat it.

Carotid angioplasty (kuh-ROT-id AN-jee-o-plas-tee) and stenting are procedures that open clogged arteries to restore blood flow to the brain. Let us know in detail from the best angioplasty doctor in Ahmedabad, Gujarat.

What is Carotid angioplasty?

The carotid arteries are located on each side of your neck. These are the main arteries supplying blood to your brain. Carotid angioplasty is a procedure that opens clogged arteries to restore blood flow to the brain. It is often performed to treat or prevent stroke.

Why it’s done

Carotid angioplasty and stenting may be appropriate stroke treatments or stroke-prevention options if:

• You have a carotid artery with a blockage of 70% or more, especially if you’ve had a stroke or stroke symptoms, and you aren’t in good enough health to undergo surgery
• You have already had a carotid endarterectomy and are experiencing new narrowing after surgery (restenosis)
• The location of the narrowing (stenosis) is difficult to access with endarterectomy

SEE MORE: Facts You Should Know About Angioplasty

Still having concerns about your heart? Talk to the best heart specialist in Ahmedabad. Drop us a message or give us a call.

What is a silent heart attack?

A silent heart attack is a heart attack that has few, if any, symptoms. You may have never had any symptoms to warn you that you’ve developed a heart problem, such as chest pain or shortness of breath. Some people later recall their silent heart attack was mistaken for indigestion, nausea, muscle pain or a bad case of the flu.

The risk factors for a silent heart attack…

are the same as those for a heart attack with symptoms. The risk factors include:

• Smoking or chewing tobacco
• Family history of heart disease
• Age
• High cholesterol
• High blood pressure
• Diabetes
• Lack of exercise
• Being overweight

Having a silent heart attack puts you at a greater risk of having another heart attack, which could be fatal. Having another heart attack also increases your risk of complications, such as heart failure.

Still having concerns about your heart? Talk to the best heart specialist in Ahmedabad. Drop us a message or give us a call.

Ever got a knife cut on your finger or a blade’s cut while shaving? When that happens, a blood clot saves the day as it quickly stops bleeding. Proteins and particles in your blood, called platelets, stick together to form the blood clot. after it has done its job, it breaks up.

Though sometimes things can go wrong. The blood shouldn’t clot when it’s just moving through the body. If blood tends to clot too much, it is referred to as a hypercoagulable state or thrombophilia. They can be dangerous and lead to serious medical conditions.

They are most likely to affect a leg, when you sit for long durations.
You also get a clot in your arteries, which carries oxygen in your blood from your heart to all the cells of your body. The result can be really serious and cause a life-threatening emergency, like a heart attack or stroke.
You could also get a clot in the veins that carry blood back to your heart.

We have listed out a few warning signs. Scroll down to learn more and you’ll know when to get a medical help.

ARMS & LEGS

Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT) – is when a blood clot forms in one of the deep veins in your arm or leg. This is dangerous and this clot could travel to your heart. Get medical help right away if you notice any of these symptoms:

• Arm or leg swelling
• Change in colour – red or blue tinge
• Dull ache to intense pain
• Trouble breathing
• Lower leg cramp

HEART

A blood clot around your heart may cause a heart attack. Watch out for these symptoms:

• Sweating
• Severe pain in your chest
• Trouble breathing

LUNGS

A blood clot in your lungs usually starts with a clotting in your arm or leg, which travels to your lung. This is extremely dangerous condition, so get medical assistance if you:

• Feel short of breath
• Pain in your chest
• Cough
• Sweating
• Dizziness

BRAIN

Blood clots here may be caused by fatty deposits in the walls of the blood vessels that bring blood to your brain. In other cases, it can also be occurred when a clot that starts out in a different part of your body, like your chest or neck, enters your bloodstream and move to your brain, where it can cause a stroke.

Watch out for these symptoms:

• Seizure
• Feeling weakness
• Vision problem
• Speech problem

OTHER AREAS

Belly – Blood clots can happen in the veins that drain blood from your intestines. They can be caused by conditions like diverticulitis or liver disease, or even by birth control pills.

Kidneys – A blood clot there can keep them from removing waste from your body. That can cause high blood pressure or even kidney failure.

It’s important to call or contact cardiologist right away if you have any symptoms of a blood clot. Getting prompt treatment will help prevent any potential complications.

We know how unpleasant it is always when we suffer from a heartburn. It’s too difficult to bear that burning sensation in your chest. But you may wonder why it always happens when you’re trying to get some sleep. Why is it more likely to happen at night?

Reason is natural force of gravity as it doesn’t work in your favor when you’re lying down. But when you sit or stand, gravity helps move the food into the stomach through esophagus.

“But when you are lying down, you lose gravity’s help in allowing your esophagus to clear food, bile and acids. And that can allow for heartburn to happen,” says gastroenterologist Scott Gabbard, MD.

He says, every person’s experience with heartburn is different. Some have heartburn symptoms during day while some feels it tougher to control at night.

What causes this burning sensation?

When you eat food, it passes to your stomach through esophagus. A muscle controls the opening between esophagus and stomach. Usually it remains closed except when we swallow food.

Heartburn occurs when this muscle fails to close after passing the food and allowing acidic content of your stomach travel back up to the esophagus. This is called reflux in medical terminology. When acidic content touches the esophagus it creates a burning sensation and we call it heartburn or more formally gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). About 10-20% of adults have heartburn problems.

A body pillow or sleeping position could help

Doctor always advises patients to elevate the headside of the bed. However with this patients have mixed results. Dr. Gabbard also recommends using a body pillow that helps you lie on left side with your head elevated.

Lying on left side allows acidic content to pass to the stomach back through lower esophageal sphincter and elevated head allows gravity to to the job.

Tips to reduce heartburn

Lose weight. People who are overweight are at greater risk of suffering from heartburn.
Stop smoking
Eat less fatty meals especially during night.
Give atleast 3 hours after eating to go to bed. Stomach takes usually 4-5 hours to empty the meal.
Use acid reducing medicines.

Usually too much spicy foods create a heartburn problems with the people. It is always advised everyone to keep food sensitivities in their mind and avoid food that creates digestion problem.

Few things in public health are controversial and often misunderstood such as cholesterol and how they are affected by the diet.

When discussing heart disease, it’s really important to understand what it means exactly. The heart is a muscle that generates the force to propel the blood throughout the vascular system. A key step in the heart disease is a sterol (mainly cholesterol) finding it’s way inside the arterial wall. When cholesterol comes, we often misunderstand the term. Let’s get it understand in a simple human terms.

Cholesterol is absolutely essential for human body. It’s an organic molecule that humans can not live without and is found in the membrane of every single cell, helping to regulate fluidity and structure.

To your surprise, most of the cholesterol in our bodies are actually produced by our own cells. The cholesterol we eat is usually a minor source compared to the amount we produce.

When people are talking about “cholesterol” in regards to heart diseases, they are talking about the cholesterol itself. Instead they are referring a structure that carry cholesterol, called lipoproteins.

Cholesterol is like an oil droplet in a glass of water which simply won’t mix. It can not travel through blood stream on its own. For this reason cholesterol is carried around the blood stream in lipoproteins.

There are many types of lipoproteins, but the two most important ones are called LDL (Low Density Lipoprotein) and HDL (High Density Lipoprotein). These are commonly referred to as the “bad” and “good” cholesterol, but this is actually inaccurate. All cholesterol is the same, it’s the lipoproteins that are different.

So… it is critical to understand that heart disease really is NOT a cholesterol disease, it is a lipoprotein disease. Having a lot of “cholesterol” in your bloodstream is NOT a bad thing, unless this cholesterol is being carried around in the wrong lipoproteins.

Cigarette smoking is one of the leading causes of heart disease and preventable deaths in the world. Despite this, some smokers find it too difficult to quit smoking. It takes too long to see the improvements in their health, that’s everyone believes.

However, health improvement timeline after quitting smoking is much faster than most people realize. Health benefits begin in as little as an hour after the last cigarette and continue to improve.

Quit Smoking: What happens?

After 1 hour
In less than 20 minutes, the heart rate drops and returns to normal. Blood pressure begins to drop to normal.

After 12 hours
After 12 hours without cigarette, the human body cleanses itself of excess amount of carbon monoxide gained cigarettes. Increases body’s oxygen level.

After 1 day
Just after 1 day of quitting smoking, the risk of heart disease start decreasing. Smoking raises the risk of developing coronary heart disease by lowering good cholesterol.

After 2 days
Smoking damages nerves responsible for the senses of smell and taste. In as little as 2 days after quitting smoking, a person may notice an improvement in these senses as these nerves heal.

After 3 days
After 3 days of quitting smoking, nicotine levels in a person’s body are depleted. Most people will experience severe headache and cravings to take nicotine as the body readjusts.

After 1 month
In 1 month, human body’s lung function begins to improve. Former smoker may experience less coughing and may notice a renewed ability for cardiovascular activities, such as running and jumping.

After 9 months
Nine months after quitting, the lungs have significantly healed themselves. The delicate, hair-like structures inside the lungs known as cilia would have recovered from the cigarette smoke. Cilia help push mucus out of the lungs and help fight infections.

After 1 year
Arteries and blood vessels to begin to widen again. One year after quitting smoking, a person’s risk for coronary heart disease decreases by half.

Outlook

Smoking is really a harmful habit that can lead to severe health complications and death. When a person quits smoking, the body will start to naturally heal and regain the vitality of a non-smoker over time.

So let’s accept this excellent choice for your healthy heart & say #IAmHeartHealthy.

How is your Cholesterol these days? Not sure? Don’t worry because you are not alone. Most people don’t have any idea about their risk for heart disease.
What’s even more threatening?
Cholesterol can start to clog your arteries as early as your twenties in this generation. And this is a potential threat to major heart disease. It’s better we start paying an extra attention to our cholesterol.
Watch this video for 5 key facts you probably don’t know about your cholesterol.

Source: Health.com

Yes, Coronary heart disease (angina and heart attack) and a stroke are co-related and can be caused by the same problem, called atherosclerosis.
Let’s understand what’s a “Stroke”?
Stroke – It occurs when blood flow to an area of brain is cut off. Our brain need a constant supply of blood to keep it working properly. So when the blood flow to the brain is cut off, it causes the brain cells to damage or die.
How is a brain stroke and heart disease related?
Both these diseases can be caused by a common problem atherosclerosis. It is a disease in which plaque builds up inside your arteries within the wall, gradually narrowing it.

1. So if blood clot blocks the artery to your heart, causing the cut off of proper blood flow to the heart, causing heart attack.
2. And if the blood clot block the artery to your brain, causing the cut off of proper blood flow to the brain, causing a stroke.

Let’s understand how this is related. Check out the informative video below: