After a heart attack, there could be several things wrong with your heart or pulmonary system that could cause another attack within hours or days of the initial attack. If you have never seen a heart specialist or cardiologist before, you will definitely be referred to one after a heart attack. He or she will want to perform some cardiology procedures, specifically a diagnostic cardiac catheterization, to check for all of the following.
Myocardial Infarction
This is a very serious health issue for people who have experienced at least one heart attack. Some of the heart's tissue has died and leaves necrotic tissue or necrotic cells in its place. The dead tissue can develop into a systemic infection, which could lead to death, even if you survive two heart attacks in a row. A cardiac catheterization allows the cardiologist an up close and personal look at the damage the heart attack caused your heart. He or she can take samples of cells from different parts of your heart and even use a very tiny camera to spot the necrotic tissue.
Atherosclerosis
A cardiac catheterization can also diagnose and help treat the blocked arteries of your heart. A common reason for a heart attack, atherosclerosis involves high cholesterol and big, fatty deposits in these arteries. When the arteries of the heart are this badly blocked, the blood cannot move out and away to the rest of the body and the pressure builds until the heart seizes and stops pumping. The catheterization helps find where these blocked areas are and then the cardiologist can perform a couple of other cardiology procedures to break up and/or remove the fat plaques.
Detecting Other Unseen Problems Which May Contribute to Heart Attacks
Arrythmias put you at risk for a heart attack because your heart already beats abnormally. Combined with other heart attack symptoms and risk factors, and it was virtually inevitable that you would have a heart attack. Issues with the valves inside your heart also contribute to a heart attack because they are releasing and circulating too much blood or not enough. These two cardiological health issues may also be discovered with a cardiac catheterization and treated before they bring on another heart attack.
Seeing a Cardiologist
After you have had your diagnostic tests and procedures, your cardiologist, like those at Henrico Cardiology Associates, will want to monitor your health more closely. Besides regular office visits, he or she may decide you need an annual angiogram to make sure that the rest of your heart, the part that was not killed during the attack, is still functioning and doing well. Your cardiologist may also decide to take blood to test for certain antigens that appear after a heart attack and monitor the antigen levels as well to prevent additional heart attacks or to recognized when you have had another attack but were not aware you did.
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