Enlarged Heart Treatment
By: Robert NamTotal Views: 455, Word Count: 554,
The term enlarged heart refers to a heart that has a thick muscular walls or over- stretch heart with dilated chambers. Both conditions might lead to heart failure. Enlarged heart treatment helps in correcting following conditions.
Medications
Your doctor might recommend you the following medication for your enlarged heart.
Anginotensin: - Converting enzyme inhibitors (ACE):- It lowers your blood pressure and improves your heart pumping capacity. The inhibitors such as enalapril (vasotec), ramipril (altace), captopril (capoten) or lisinopril (zestril) are included in it.
Angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs):- Valsartan (Diovan) and losartan (cozaar) for those people who cannot take ACE inhibitor.
Digoxin: - It aids in improving your heart pump functions. It also minimizes the need of hospitalization in case of heart failure.
Diuretics: - It helps in decreasing the level of sodium and water in your body, which helps to lower the pressure on your arteries and heart i.e. furosemide (Lasix). The other diuretics like spironolactone (Aldactone) helps in preventing the scarring of heart tissue.
Beat Blockers: - It lowers your blood pressure level and improves the functioning of your heart like metoprolo (lopressor), toprol-XL, and carvedilol (coreg).
Medical procedures and surgeries for enlarged heart treatment :
If the medications are not enough for the treatment of your enlarged heart, one should adopt medical procedure or surgery for the treatment.
Medical devices: - In some cases, people of enlarged heart, might require pacemaker to coo- ordinate between the left and right ventricle. For the people at a risk of arrhythmias, drug therapy or implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) is a good option.
ICD are the small devices, which are implanted in your chest to continuously monitor your heart rhythm. Electric shocks can be delivered in case of abnormal heartbeat. This device also work as a pace maker.
Heart valve surgery: - If any of your heart valves have a problem that causes your heart to enlarge, you might require surgery of replacing your valve with artificial valve or a tissue valve from a cow, pig, or human cadaver donor.
If you are suffering from valve regurgitation, in which, blood leaks from valve then you should replace or repair leaky valve through surgery.
Heart transplant: - If the medication cannot control your symptoms, heart transplant can be the best and final option. Due to the shortage of heart donors, people who are in a critical condition have to wait for long for having a heart transplant.
Change in Life Style and Home Remedies: -
By following the options below, one can help their heart from being enlarged. Your doctor can recommend you to adopt the following life style changes.
- Control your fat
- Eat healthy heart diet
- Control the level of sodium in the diet
- Control your diabetes
- Maintain your blood pressure level
- Quit smoking
- Regular physical activity
- Stop taking alcohol drink
- Try to sleep at least eight Hours at night.
Diagnosis Method for Enlarged Heart: -
A test used to diagnose the enlarged heart includes.
1. Echocardiogram
2. Chest X-ray
3. Stress test
Enlarged heart is a serious condition. Person requires extreme care and attention to get it treated.
About the Author
Dr. Robert Nam is a well known heart specialist and has done postgraduate training in cardiology at the national heart hospital, the London chest hospital and UCL hospital, London. He was also engaged in research at the national heart and lung institute. Nowadays he is working as a consultant cardiologist at UCL hospital, London.
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