Symptoms, consequences, prevention and treatment of myocardial hypoxia

1 The main signs of the pathology of

Myocardial hypoxia has two main symptoms:

1. Angina
2. Tachycardia

The most common symptom that causes myocardial hypoxia is angina, or the so-called "angina pectoris" .With her, a person feels a sharp pain behind the chest. The pain can give in the scapula, in the throat, in the jaw and kidney, respond in the bones. Often, with an attack of angina, the patient can not take a deep breath - with inspiration there is an increase in pain.

The second major symptom is tachycardia, or palpitation. Hypoxia of the myocardium causes such a phenomenon because the heart tissues try to fill the lack of oxygen with more intensive work. Therefore, the heart begins to beat more often - in some cases, the heartbeat can reach up to 200 beats per minute in the absence of physical exertion or some expressed external factors.

There are also a number of other factors that may be the result of this disease:

1. Blood pressure jumps - against the background of the general high blood pressure there can be periods with a sharp drop.
2. Increased fatigue, sweating, hot flashes.
3. Reduced blood supply to other organs, due to the fact that the body tries to redirect more blood supply to the heart, and, as a consequence, the appearance of other diseases.

2 The main causes of the disease

The most important cause of myocardial hypoxia is ischemic heart disease. Coronary heart disease is a disease of the cardiovascular system, when there is not enough blood to reach the heart muscle, the myocardium. The cause of coronary heart disease can be many factors.

The main cause is cholesterol plaques. Because of the high amount of cholesterol in the blood, the accumulation of fat deposits on the walls of the vessels begins. They narrow the effective lumen of the vessel, and it worsens the blood flow. If these are coronary vessels that supply our heart with blood, then their ischemic heart disease will inevitably appear when they contract.

Another common cause is vessel spasms due to toxic effects. The most common toxic effect on the body is nicotine exposure, or smoking. When smoking a cigarette, a phenomenon occurs, such as constriction of blood vessels. Many smokers can observe this clearly - when they smoke they become colder hands.

If this is clearly expressed - it is desirable to get rid of this addiction as soon as possible, your blood vessels are very sensitive to the effects of nicotine. Tobacco is even used as a hemostatic - with extensive injuries of the skin enough to sprinkle the surface of the wound with tobacco, and bleeding will stop or greatly decrease.

Toxic effects are not limited to just one nicotine - a fairly common effect will be the action of heavy metals, zinc, lead, thallium and their compounds. Many workers of harmful occupations are exposed to these influences - metallurgists, electroplating, drivers. If you are constantly in a car, bus or trolley, you breathe the same air that is on the roadway, no matter how good the air conditioner or flavor in the cabin you have. And this air is very rich in lead compounds.

It is also often possible to observe hypoxia of the myocardium of toxic origin in criminal poisonings - they are trying to disguise as a normal heart attack. Often there are criminal poisonings with thallium preparations - these substances cause prolonged and constant exposure to aggravation of coronary heart disease and lead to a heart attack rather quickly, leaving no serious traces in the body.

The third common cause is a violation of blood quality. When the blood of a person thickens, it moves with difficulty through the vessels. Because of this, thrombi can arise - clogging of blood vessels due to accumulation of blood, its clotting. The most common phenomenon that reduces the quality of blood is alcoholism. In the process of drinking alcohol, blood erythrocytes clump together into large erythrocyte bunches that pass through the vessels with difficulty, absorb oxygen from the lungs more slowly and transfer it to the heart more slowly.

A second factor in reducing blood quality can be diabetes. Fortunately, modern medicine has good means to maintain the patient's condition at the proper level. However, those who do not follow their sugar level, refuse insulin injections or allow temporary increases in blood sugar, risk getting a thickening of blood and, as a result, poor blood supply to the heart muscle.

In addition, the actual hypoxia of the myocardium can cause a general lack of oxygen in the blood, for example, for a long time in an unventilated room for several days, or climbing to a high altitude where the air is rarefied.

3 Possible consequences of

The most dangerous consequence of myocardial hypoxia and ischemic heart disease is myocardial infarction. Like any tissue of the body, with violation of blood supply and oxygen delivery, the heart muscle begins to die. Complete withering with partial restriction of oxygen access to the heart occurs in a few hours, and with complete overlapping of the main coronary artery - in a few minutes. As a rule, this happens due to the chipping of the cholesterol plaque from the wall of the heart vessel, when it rises across it and completely blocks the passage of blood. Usually this is practically asymptomatic, and the very beginning can easily be missed. However, then there is a sharp deterioration in the state, loss of consciousness and, most often, death of a person.

Infarction can occur without cholesterol - with a critical narrowing of the vessel as a result of toxic poisoning, the cardiac muscle dies rapidly for several hours.

The second consequence of myocardial hypoxia is vascular sclerosis. Because of poor blood supply to the heart, the blood supply of the blood vessels of the whole organism is also disturbed. Therefore, their sclerosis develops, which can lead to a number of other diseases not only the heart - stroke of the brain, kidney disease, liver disease, other internal organs.

If you have an ischemic heart disease, prepare in advance for an unfavorable course of the disease. Unfortunately, modern medicine does not have enough knowledge how to reverse the disease. The only thing that can be done is to reduce its consequences and slow the course of the disease.

4 Preventive measures

The most reliable means to combat the occurrence of heart disease is their prevention. It includes three main directions:

1. Diet
2. Healthy lifestyle
3. Proper physical activity

For the heart and people at risk, a diet is the main condition for health. It is due to the diet that the level of cholesterol in the blood decreases - it is the main cause of heart diseases. You need to monitor your weight and not allow it to increase.

In addition, you need to limit the consumption of certain foods: animal fats, eggs, fatty meat products, foods with a high content of "fast" carbohydrates - sugar, sweets, wheat pastries, potatoes, flour products. On the contrary, fish, quality vegetable oil, all kinds of green salads are welcome. Also, you should limit the consumption of foods with food additives, give preference to more expensive, but natural products.

A healthy lifestyle implies a complete rejection of the toxic effects of alcohol and cigarettes. For people at risk of heart disease, this is more a philosophy than a set of learned recommendations - do not do anything that can harm your body. You do not have to sunbathe the sun for several hours a day, and then fight with burns, you do not need to smoke and drink - it's not only a waste of time and money, but a voluntary sacrifice of your internal organs to the altar of alcohol and tobacco producers. Do not sit until three o'clock in the morning and watch football on television under coffee - it's better to go to bed early and calmly watch the repeat of the match for another day. Everything should be done in moderation, you need to learn how to listen to your body - what is good for him, and what's bad. The most important factor here is our inner sense of our own well-being. If you started to do something, and the state of health worsened, you need to stop doing it.

The correct physical load is quite an important thing. For people with ischemic heart disease, exercise should be limited. This is particularly true for those who have the presence of cholesterol plaques on the vessels - a sharp increase in the blood flow velocity may lead to their chipping and blockage of the vessel. On the contrary, people who have this disease do not need regular physical exercises to prevent hypoxia of the myocardium. It will be best to concentrate on exercises of aerobic exercise - running, cycling. Even simple trips to the forest for mushrooms and berries will have a good effect on the state of the body, the main thing is to do it regularly.

5 Therapy Methods

The first thing to do if you find yourself experiencing symptoms of myocardial hypoxia is to see a doctor. For the elderly, you need to regularly undergo a full medical examination - at least once every six months to do a cardiogram. This will identify diseases at an early stage and minimize their impact on your life.

Next, you must follow the recommendations of your doctor. Usually, with angina pectoris prescribe nitroglycerin as a means to reduce pain. You also need to strictly follow the diet, give up alcohol and tobacco.

If myocardial hypoxia was caused by such factors as acute poisoning, a rise to a height or a sharp descent from a height, for example, in case of a prolonged parachute jump, when the steering wheel is struck in the sternum during a car crash, urgent hospitalization is necessary, and if necessary, resuscitation. In any case, the patient needs to be delivered as soon as possible to the medical center, where he will receive the proper medical care. If the patient does not show signs of life, it is necessary to provide medical assistance in the form of artificial respiration right up to the arrival of doctors - even with a loss of consciousness, the heart can continue to work for several hours and it can be saved.