How to Lower your Health Risks after a Heart Attack
QHHL 
Mar 08 2018
0 
0 QHHL
After you’ve had a heart attack, it might seem as if it’s too late to assess and lower your health risks. But that’s incorrect. It’s actually the perfect time to start some health monitoring activities and to make sure you’re as healthy as you can possibly be. Doing this will help you to live a long and happy life even after a heart event, and it will give you some security and peace of mind about your personal health.
What is a Heart Attack?
Your heart is a muscle and it needs a constant supply of blood to keep it pumping. Blood conveys oxygen and nutrients to the heart and when the supply is blocked it causes a heart attack. When the blood is cut off from the heart for too long, it causes the tissue of the heart to die. And the longer the heart is without blood, the greater the damage and the worse the outcome of the event.
Some of the most common symptoms of a heart attack include:
However, this is not an exhaustive list. Heart attacks can occur without chest pain, particularly when the patient is diabetic, or can be accompanied by mild pain that comes and goes over several hours. Women in particular can experience a range of symptoms including nausea, tiredness that lasts for several days, cold sweats or dizziness. Because of this variety of symptoms, heart attacks can be difficult to diagnose, so if you experience any symptoms that make you concerned, make sure you see your doctor as soon as possible.
Risk Factors for Heart Attacks
It’s very difficult to determine an individual’s risk of having a heart attack. There are just too many variables. One person might eat processed foods constantly and never have any problems with their heart, whereas a second might jog every day and have a heart attack in their thirties. However, despite this wide variability, there are several risk factors that put people at more risk of having a heart attack. These include:
This is a long list of risk factors, and many of them are too common to be used as predictors of future health problems in people who have already suffered from heart attacks.
Health Predictions After a Heart Attack
Calculating your health risk after you’ve had a heart attack is a complicated by the long list of risk factors and the fact that they’re so common amongst most of the population. A recent study has made the attempt to narrow these down. It examined participants to determine which factors could predict an elevated risk of Acute Coronary Syndrome (ACS).
ACS is a range of cardiac conditions that are linked to a reduction or blockage in the blood flow to the heart, and can in some cases lead to heart attacks. The study found that platelets, a part of the blood plasma that makes the blood clot, was a key factor in determining health risk.
During a heart attack, blood clots block the flow of blood to the heart and must be dissolved before the heart muscle dies from lack of oxygen. The study found that the patients who had to wait longer for the blood clots to dissolve had a 40% higher risk of suffering from a second heart attack. This is a staggering increase, and has important indications for the future treatment of heart attack sufferers.
The Implications for your Personal Health
This latest study indicates that blood thinners, medications that thin out the blood and help to dissolve blood clots, can be a key part of preventing future heart events. It also suggests that patients whose clots took longer to dissolve after their first heart attack might be at higher risk than patients whose clots dissolved more quickly, and that they might need more intensive treatment and health monitoring to avoid future problems. So if you or someone you love has had a heart attack, make sure your doctor is aware of this research and tailors your treatments in response.
These results should also encourage you to take more control of your own personal health. You can do this by performing a regular health assessment at home so you can monitor any troubling symptoms and track the effects of the changes you’ve made to your life. This means that when you next go to the doctor, you will have a lot of information to give them, which can help them more accurately assess your health risk and make suggestions to improve your personal health and wellbeing.
If you’ve had a heart attack and want to monitor your health more closely, consider using HomeLab, the health tool that will help you keep track of your condition and any preventative measures you take. And if you see signs of a significant problem, make sure you check with your doctor as soon as possible.
Tags: Health risk, heart health, health assessment, health monitoring, personal health