RAPID CITY, S.D.— Heart failure affects millions of Americans — and during American Heart Month, doctors want people to understand who’s most at risk. Monument Health Director of Heart Failure Dr. Luis Hernandez says, “People who have high blood pressure, people who are diabetic, people who are obese, people who had blockage, or what we known as cad coronary artery disease, those patients are at higher risk of having heart failure.”
Doctor Hernandez says lifestyle choices can also play a major role in heart health. Dr. Hernandez says, “Obviously smoking is bad, right, being not active or physical inactivity is bad, right? Obviously avoid a lot of fat, food saturated fats, but eat healthy as much as we can.”
And recognizing the warning signs early can make a big difference. According to Dr. Hernandez, “If a patient has shortness of breath with exertion or just by walking, and you start getting out of breath, if you start noticing your ankle swelling, your leg swelling, that is not normal. And that’s when we always think about heart failure. If you’re at night, you know you’re not able to lay flat because you wake up gasping with, you know, out of air. So those are symptoms that you probably have heart failure. You should go to your primary doctor or your cardiologist.”
But Doctor Hernandez says in many cases, heart failure can be prevented. Dr. Hernandez says, “Most of the time, we can prevent heart failure, people who are diabetic, people who had high blood pressure, people who had extra weight or obesity, people who smoke. Those are things that we can try to change, being inactive, continue smoking, treat the diabetes. If they are diabetic, we can prevent heart failure if we do the right things.”
