Ischemic cardiomyopathy often occurs acutely. It is caused by a blood clot creating an obstruction in an already narrow coronary artery. Although no one can say when coronary artery obstruction or ischemic cardiomyopathy will occur, whenever there is an obstructive blood clot in a coronary artery, the patient often experiences tightness of the chest, which is a major telltale symptom.
Contributing Factors of Ischemic Cardiomyopathy
The factors that contribute to acute ischemic cardiomyopathy include diabetes, hypertension and high cholesterol. These conditions are very common and require you to be very careful, and patients that have them should receive heart check-ups. That being said, there are also other risk factors like smoking and severe sleep apnea, i.e., not breathing while sleeping, which evidence clearly shows to cause hypoxia in patients and lead to rapid deterioration in the blood vessels and formation of obstructive blood clots.
In addition to patients with acute ischemic cardiomyopathy, another group of patients that need to exercise extra caution is patients with narrowed but still not obstructed coronary arteries. These patients experience symptoms only when the heart has to work hard, such as when exercising or when the heart is beating fast. These patients have to control their risk factors and use drugs simultaneously to produce good results. Otherwise, in severe cases, it might be necessary to contemplate use of balloon angioplasty, or, if multiple arteries are blocked, surgery.
Risk Factors for Ischemic Cardiomyopathy
- Unchangeable and uncorrectable factors such as the following:
- Sex. Statistics show that the condition is more common in men than women.
- Age. Ischemic cardiomyopathy is found in middle-aged to elderly people, especially in men 45 years and older and women 55 years and older.
- Genetics. People with family history of ischemic cardiomyopathy, especially people whose family members start developing symptoms from their middle age and beyond, are at greater risk of developing this disease than people without family history of this disease.
- Changeable and Correctable Risk Factors:
- Chronic diseases or co-morbidities such as diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol and obesity, etc.
- Risk behaviors from cigarette smoking, lack of exercise and chronic stress.
Symptoms of Ischemic Cardiomyopathy
The heart consists of muscles that pump blood to supply to tissues and pumps blood to the lungs for oxygenation. Accordingly, for the heart muscles to function, they require nutrients and oxygen from 3 coronary arteries. If any of these arteries become obstructed due to a blood clot or become narrowed or blocked due to atherosclerosis to the point that the muscle tissues suffer from a shortage of blood supply over a period of 20 minutes, the muscles affected will die or the heart muscles may not function. The severity of symptoms vary, but the major symptoms are that ischemic cardiomyopathy patients often experience angina pectoris, which feels similar to something heavy being put on the chest. Otherwise, it feels like there is something that is constricting you. There could also be pain underneath the bones on the left side, possibly shooting up to the jaw and left arm. Pain is often linked to exercise, for example, when running after a bus, walking up an overpass or lifting heavy objects. It can also happen due to chronic stress. Usually, the pain does not last longer than 15-30 minutes, and the patient often feels better after taking a drug and resting. Additional symptoms may include shoulder, neck, jaw, back and abdominal pain, especially sharp pain around the xiphoid process, accompanied by breathing difficulty, inability to breathe, fatigue, dizziness, fainting, nausea and sweating.
If you have chest pain and are experiencing the above symptoms for the first time, you need to quickly go to the doctor. Otherwise, if you have had chest pain for a long time and the severity has not changed, you can possibly keep taking your current medications and consult your doctor about your condition. If you already have chest pain and the following symptoms occur, you need to urgently see the doctor. These symptoms are known as unstable angina:
- More severe pain than usual.
- Pain lasting longer than 20 minutes.
- Pain that happens while at rest.
- Pain that does not subside after taking medication.
- Pain that is so bad that you sweat, faint or pant.
For some elderly patients and diabetes patients without chest tightness who experience angina, they may faint or experience other uncommon symptoms such as pain or tightness around the xiphoid process, loss of breath, rapid breathing, agitation, fatigue, heart palpitations and sweating.
One important way to prevent ischemic cardiomyopathy is to control risk factors that cause the disease, especially by controlling and treating co-morbidities such as diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol and obesity and modifying unhealthy behaviors such as by giving up smoking, controlling body weight from being excessively heavy, performing aerobic exercises regularly in 30-minute sessions for at least 5 times per week, eating nutritious food such as fish, vegetables and fruits while avoiding fatty, strongly-flavored or high-cholesterol food, relaxing the mind to destress, strictly taking medications and carrying sublingual medications with you to allow them to be used immediately whenever needed.
