If you find yourself feeling extremely tired, experience a loss of appetite, frequent urination especially at night, and coughing or wheezing, you better go to your doctor for these are some of the symptoms of heart failure.
According to Dr. Orly Bugarin, president of the Philippine Heart Association, heart failure is characterized by the inability of the heart to pump enough blood to supply the whole body.
In a media briefing, he mentioned in his presentation that if a person suffers from cardiovascular disease, the contraction of the muscle is weak and only a small amount of blood is pumped with every heartbeat.
Symptoms
Other typical symptoms of heart failure are:
- Shortness of breath, even when lying down
- Rapid heartbeat or palpitations
- Swelling in the ankles/feet/stomach
- Weight gain over a short period of time (more than 2 kgs over 2 days)
Dr. Bugarin said that globally, there are 60 million patients worldwide who suffer from heart failure.
He warned that approximately 50 percent of patients diagnosed with heart failure will die within five years and one-third of the patients will die within one year of hospitalization for heart failure.
“And the risk increases with age,” he said.
Equal risk
In the Philippines, 1.6 million (16 cases for every 1,000) Filipinos suffer from heart failure.
The condition affects both Filipino males and females equally.
Compared to Western and Asia-Pacific countries, the local mortality rate was relatively higher, he said.
Heart failure is usually caused by a combination of underlying disease(s) and risk factors:
- Blocked artery in the heart which is the most common cause of chronic heart failure (almost 70 percent of patients).
- High blood
- Primary defects in the heart muscle
- Obesity
- Overactive thyroid gland
- Diabetes mellitus
- Smoking
- Pituitary disorders
Dilemma
Dr. Bugarin encouraged those who seek treatment will feel relieved of the symptoms, and will have an improved quality of life, increased cardiac functional capacity, prevent hospital admissions, and improved survival.
However, since there is a pandemic, Bugarin admitted that there is a delay in treating patients with heart failure adding that heart failure and Covid -19 have the same warning signs.
“That is the dilemma,” he said.
He, however appealed to those experiencing heart failure symptoms not to wait for their situation to worsen.
“The problem is, if we are going to delay it, we might reach the point that our situation is already at the worst stage,” he said.