Worried about your heart health? Expert guidance on when to see a specialist

While occasional chest pains or palpitations are not always a sign of something serious, in some cases, they can indicate poor heart health or warn of the risk of a future heart attack. Fortunately, early intervention and effective treatment can often prevent significant heart problems and reverse the damage done by cardiovascular disease. As in many areas of healthcare, however, reporting your symptoms to a specialist at an early stage is key in receiving timely and effective intervention. In this informative article, leading consultant cardiologist Dr Eileen Peat shares her expert insight on the key lifestyle factors which can affect our heart health and explains when to see a doctor about any concerning symptoms.

What are the signs or symptoms of poor heart health?

The signs and symptoms of poor heart health can be quite varied. These symptoms can often occur when the person exerts themselves or does exercise and may include breathlessness, palpitations or chest pain. Although there are many signs of poor heart health, we often associate a patient’s symptoms with a cardiac cause if they happen on exertion.

Do these symptoms usually have a sudden or gradual onset?

Heart symptoms can come on very suddenly and of course, you do occasionally hear of people having very sudden heart attacks with no prior warning. Often, however, with hindsight, you will see that symptoms maybe have been creeping up on them for a few months. This may only have been a minimal warning, such as slight breathlessness or a mild chest pain, which at the time didn’t seem important but on reflection following an event, may be significant.

Which factors may make a person more likely to suffer from poor heart health?

There are many lifestyle factors which can contribute to poor cardiac health, including:

• smoking
• being overweight
• having high cholesterol or high blood pressure

These risk factors are all very important in predicting your heart health outcome over a prolonged period, from the next five to fifteen years. If any of these risk factors apply to you, the most important thing is to get them aggressively managed early on as this can prevent heart attack, stroke and other significant health issues developing with time.

When should you see a doctor?

If you have any concerns over your heart health, you should see a doctor sooner rather than later as many cardiac problems are easily prevented and can be treated with medication if picked up in advance. So my advice would be to get a check-up if you have any concerns at all, especially as prevention is far preferable than having a cardiac event and then regretting not having seen a specialist sooner.

If you have a positive family history of heart disease, high cholesterol, high blood pressure or you are worried about any other risk factors, see your cardiologist as soon as possible because we are able to easily reverse and treat many of these issues.

Which tests are performed to assess heart health and investigate related symptoms?

With most types of heart investigations, you can get a lot of information from very simple, non-invasive testing. This can include a simple ECG, a tracing of the heart, or an echocardiogram, which is an ultrasound of your heart looking at its function, muscle and valves to give key information about the health of your heart.

If you are concerned about conditions such as angina or suffering a heart attack over time, a treadmill test, a simple walking test while attached to an ECG, can give a lot of information in regard to your risk.

If you are worried about your heart health and wish to schedule a consultation with Dr Peat, you can do so by visiting her Top Doctors profile.