Comprehensive Coronary Artery Disease Information & Care - CVG Cares Cardiology

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Coronary Artery Disease

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Learn How To Prevent Or Treat Coronary Artery Disease

Coronary artery disease (CAD) is a heart condition that occurs when the blood vessels that flow to the heart become damaged or diseased. Since they can no longer supply adequate blood to the heart, your heart muscle becomes weaker.

When reading this page and talking to your board-certified cardiologists here at CVG, you’ll find that coronary artery disease is an umbrella term for several conditions. Often, these build on each other, from one to the next. You may have heard about some of these, such as angina, atherosclerosis (buildup of plaque in the heart arteries), and heart attacks. Protecting your health by managing risk factors, taking and reviewing tests, and having your doctor provide a treatment plan can help protect your health.

Coronary artery disease occurs when your heart’s arteries become blocked, making blood flow harder. We offer tests to check your cholesterol and blood pressure, EKGs, and stress tests. We can help you learn how your diet, exercise habits, and stress levels, as well as smoking and an overall sedentary lifestyle, contribute to coronary artery disease risks. You can gain positive health benefits by managing stress, controlling blood pressure and cholesterol, quitting smoking, and increasing physical activity (under your doctor’s advice).

We invite you to place your trust in our CVG heart care specialists, who can assess your risk, recommend preventive measures, and provide treatments such as medications or procedures if necessary. Please read on for additional details on how we test and treat coronary artery disease. You can also get some helpful, quick insights with our “Healthy Heart Tips.”

Learn How To Prevent Or Treat Coronary Artery Disease

Risk Factors For CAD

Various factors can increase the risk of heart diseases such as CAD. The three main risk factors that cause heart disease are high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and smoking.

High Blood Pressure

High blood pressure is a major risk factor for Coronary Artery Disease. This medical condition occurs when the pressure in your arteries and blood vessels is too high. High blood pressure can also affect other organs, including the kidneys and brain. It is especially dangerous because it usually has no symptoms. The only way to learn if your blood pressure is too high is to measure it.

High Cholesterol

If your body produces more cholesterol than it can use, cholesterol can build up in your arterial walls. This will cause your arteries to narrow and decrease blood flow to your organs, possibly leading to CAD. High cholesterol often has no symptoms but can be checked with a blood test called a lipid profile.

Smoking

Smoking cigarettes can damage your heart and lungs, along with your blood vessels, which increases your risk for heart conditions. Nicotine also raises blood pressure, while the carbon monoxide from the smoke reduces the amount of oxygen that your blood can carry. Tobacco use increases the risk of long-term heart disease and heart attacks.

Other risk factors include uncontrollable things such as age, sex, and family history, so it’s important to work on the factors you can control. These factors include diabetes, obesity, physical inactivity, high stress, and unhealthy diet choices.

Other possible yet less common risk factors are sleep apnea, high-sensitivity C-reactive protein, high triglycerides, homocysteine, preeclampsia, alcohol consumption, and autoimmune diseases. Multiple risk factors at once increase your chances of developing Coronary Artery Disease.

Causes Of CAD

CAD is a heart disease caused by plaque buildup in the arterial walls that supply blood to the heart. This plaque consists of cholesterol and other substances that stick to the artery. Plaque buildup causes the insides of the arteries to narrow, which restricts or fully blocks blood from flowing to the heart.

Once the inner wall of an artery becomes damaged, plaque begins to collect around the injury in a process called atherosclerosis. If this plaque surface ruptures, blood cells known as platelets will clump together in an attempt to repair the artery. This clump can block the artery, known as a blood clot, which can lead to a heart attack (myocardial infarction).

Symptoms Of CAD

Coronary Artery Disease often goes unnoticed until you experience severe heart disease symptoms such as heart attacks, arrhythmias, or heart failure. The symptoms of a heart attack include pain in the upper back and neck, chest pain, indigestion or heartburn, nausea or vomiting, extreme fatigue or dizziness, and shortness of breath.

The symptoms of an arrhythmia are heart palpitations, which is described as a fluttering feeling in your chest. The symptoms of heart failure include shortness of breath, fatigue, and swelling in the feet, ankles, legs, or abdomen. If you experience any of these symptoms, call 911 immediately, as quick treatment greatly decreases your chance of long-term damage.

Prevention And Treatment Of CAD

The main way to prevent Coronary Artery Disease is to actively make healthy lifestyle choices. A simple but effective way to lower your risk for CAD is by treating your heart to a healthy diet; this means choosing fresh fruits and vegetables over processed foods. Limiting your salt and sugar intake and avoiding foods with high levels of saturated fat helps to prevent high blood pressure and cholesterol.

Overconsumption of alcohol can also increase your blood pressure, so be sure to drink in moderation. If you currently smoke tobacco, quitting will greatly reduce your risk for CAD. Quitting is a difficult process, but it is easier with the help of a doctor.

Maintain a healthy body mass index (BMI). Obesity increases the risk of heart diseases due to extra stress on the heart and blood vessels. Regular physical activity is important for losing weight and lowering blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar levels.

Another great prevention method is to actively check your health conditions. This means having regular checkups to test your blood pressure and cholesterol levels. Your cholesterol should be checked at least once every 4 to 6 years, while your blood pressure should be checked at least one every 2 years. If you have been previously diagnosed with either high cholesterol or high blood pressure, your levels should be tested even more frequently.

All of these methods can also work to reduce the intensity of CAD once it has been diagnosed. It is never too late to make healthier lifestyle choices that lead to greater overall health.

Why Choose CVG?

Trust is the #1 factor that defines the doctor/patient relationship. At CVG, you’ll be assured throughout your testing, diagnosis, and treatment because our cardiologists offer years of experience and expertise. You’ll benefit from state-of-the-art technology and doctors who offer you the compassion you need as you navigate your healthcare journey. Whichever Atlanta area CVG location you choose, you can access advanced, comprehensive heart care.

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Board-certified Doctors

CVG’s twenty board-certified heart doctors will guide you through your healthcare journey with the utmost compassion and individual attention. We aim to provide you with state-of-the-art cardiac care that includes the full spectrum of services, from testing to diagnosis and treatment. The doctor/patient relationship is built on trust. Through our combined efforts, we can conquer any challenge that comes our way.

Invasive therapies may also treat an abnormal heart rhythm, such as electrical cardioversion, which sends electrical impulses through your chest wall and allows normal heart rhythm to restart, or catheter ablation that disconnects the abnormal rhythm’s pathway. Suppose your doctor determines that electrical devices are the best course of action. In that case, you may be given a permanent pacemaker, an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD), or biventricular (B-V) pacemakers and defibrillators.

How CVG Can Help

CVG offers various services that can check and treat symptoms of CAD. At CVG, we perform stress tests that will observe blood flow and test for Atrial Fibrillation. We perform three types of stress tests:

A treadmill test is a test in which you will walk on a treadmill that gets faster and steeper every 3 minutes. This will stress your heart so that our nurse or doctor can determine your heart rate and blood pressure.
An echo test is performed before and after your treadmill test to determine how well your heart pumps blood.
A nuclear stress test is a treadmill test that is prefaced by an injection of medicine that shows the flow of blood to your heart.

We also offer cardiac catheterization to diagnose and treat several heart issues. If any of these tests determine a problem, we offer treatment solutions such as atrial fibrillation testing and catheter ablation. Learn more about our services here, or schedule an appointment to talk to our doctors.

Schedule Your Appointment with a CVG Atlanta Area Cardiologist

Expertise, experience, and compassion are the pillars of CVG’s patient-centered cardiac care. Please schedule your appointment with CVG today. Call (770) 962-0399 or 678-582-8586. You may also request an appointment online. If you have an emergency, don’t contact us online; please call 911.