Needing extra pillows to sleep comfortably is not a trivial habit, it is one of cardiology’s most specific symptoms of elevated cardiac filling pressure. Here is what it means.
Breathlessness is easy to explain away, but it is also one of the most important cardiac symptoms. Here is when breathlessness warrants a cardiac assessment, and what to do next.
Most people are home within hours of a coronary angiogram, but knowing what to expect from the TR band, the results conversation, and the days after makes a real difference.
T wave inversion describes a small wave on the tracing pointing down instead of up. In several of the heart’s twelve viewpoints that is completely normal. What matters is which ones, and whether it is new.
Second-degree AV block means most signals reach the lower chambers of the heart and the occasional one does not. Some causes are entirely benign. Here is what the finding describes and what usually happens next.
Cholesterol is usually described as drifting up slowly with age. For women through menopause that is wrong in an important way, and one number on the panel can move in the wrong direction while appearing not to move at all.
Infective endocarditis is an infection of the heart’s inner lining, usually settling on a valve. It is uncommon, but the early signs are vague enough that it is often missed. Knowing who is at risk is most of the answer.
In complete heart block the top and bottom of the heart stop communicating, and a backup rhythm takes over. It is serious, and it is also among the most fixable problems in cardiology.
Most towns do not have a catheter laboratory. When someone has a heart attack there, a clot-dissolving drug goes in first and the journey comes second. Here is why that order is the right one.