The most effective way to treat heart problems is to prevent them. While part of our job as providers of heart disease treatment in Boynton Beach and Delray Beach is to use the most modern and state-of-the-art technology to diagnose and treat existing cardiovascular problems, a larger part of that job is to work with our patients to help them keep the problems from arising in the first place.
Many patients see a Delray Beach cardiologist not because they have existing heart problems, but because they wish to prevent them. When working with patients with healthy hearts, we help them reduce their risk by helping them to lose weight and follow a more heart-healthy diet, and by helping them to develop healthier exercise habits. Because both smoking and stress are major risk factors for heart disease, we also provide information and support to help with smoking cessation and stress reduction.
Although many patients don’t realize it, simply seeing their cardiologists on a regular basis is a form of heart disease prevention. Regular visits allow your doctors to monitor important measures such as your blood pressure, blood sugar levels, and cholesterol levels. These are all important predictors of potential heart problems, and being able to monitor them more often allows cardiologists to find small problems and correct them before they become big problems.
Patients who are at higher risk for heart disease should also work on reducing the risks described above, but there are more specific preventive measures that cardiologists can recommend to keep them healthy. For patients who have already had a heart attack or are at very high risk of having one, blood-thinning medications can be prescribed to make the blood less “sticky” and thus less likely to coagulate and form blood clots. If clots have already been detected, or if a patient is preparing for or recovering from heart surgery procedures, anti-clotting medications may be prescribed to open narrowed coronary arteries.
For patients with high heart rates and high blood pressure, beta blockers can help to prevent heart attack by reducing the demand on your heart. Also, for patients who have had a previous heart attack, ACE (angiotensin-converting enzyme) inhibitors are often prescribed to improve the heart’s pumping capacity and improve blood flow. Finally, for patients with very high cholesterol levels, a number of medications called statins can help to lower your levels of unwanted blood cholesterol, and thus reduce the risk of heart attack.
This advice may at first sound counter-intuitive. After all, don’t most people go to see the doctor only when they’re unhealthy? But when it comes to keeping your heart healthy – especially if you have already been identified as “high risk” – seeing your heart care specialists in Boynton Beach on a regular basis and following their advice can definitely help to prevent more serious problems from arising. So if you haven’t had a checkup in a while, call the best heart doctors in Boynton Beach today at 561-515-0080 and make an appointment.
