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Symptoms and Treatment of Heart Disease

Heart disease is one of the avoidable diseases anyone can have if they follow the rules from the American Heart Association early in life. Of course heredity has some influence on the body but with good eating habits, daily exercise and avoiding stressful situations, the chances are good you can avoid getting heart disease.

One morning about 6:00 o'clock I awoke with pains in my chest. The pains came and went with a regular rhythm I tried to ignore them, but they occurred much too often. On the way to work, I stopped at a clinic for a checkup, even though the pains had finally subsided. An electrocardiogram revealed nothing, but after giving the doctor my family history of heart disease, he made the diagnosis, "You are having some heart trouble." He gave me a prescription of nitroglycerin to put under my tongue if I had further pains. He told me I must stop smoking and gave me literature to read from the American Heart Association.

According to the pamphlet he gave me, you are at risk for a heart attack or stroke if you have any of the following risk factors:

If you are a man over 45 or a woman over 65
If your father or brother had a heart attack before the age of 45
If your mother or sister had a heart attack before 55
If a close relative has had a stroke
If your cholesterol level is 240 or higher
If your blood pressure is 140/90 or higher
If you get less than 30 minutes of activity every day
If you are 30 pounds or more overweight
If you have diabetes

The American Heart Association also lists the symptoms of a heart attack as follows:

Pressure, fullness, squeezing or pain in the center of the chest lasting more than a few minutes
Pain, spreading to the shoulders, neck and arms
Chest discomfort with lightheadedness, fainting, sweating, nausea or shortness of breath
Stomach or abdominal pain
Dizziness
Unexplained anxiety
Weakness or fatigue

When I went home that night after work, I read the pamphlet the doctor gave me. I realized I fit most of the symptoms and I stopped smoking. I waited too long and suffered a heart attack within three months. I was 61, and you can survive a heart attack. I started walking every day, never smoked again, changed to a low-fat, low-salt diet, and today I am 87, taking a few medicines for my heart, but leading a normal life for a woman of my age.

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Learn more about this author, Emma Willey.
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