How to Tell If You Have Heart Problems

Heart disease is a serious condition, which, if left unchecked, can be fatal. Heart problems cover conditions like hardening or narrowing of the arteries, heart attacks and congestive heart failure. To prevent and deal with heart problems, the first thing you need to do is become aware of them.

Things You'll Need

• Information on heart disease
• Family history
• Information on your health
• Physician's number

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Instructions

• 1

  Read up on heart disease. Heart disease manifests itself in many ways, from chest pain to dizziness, and it's important to know the symptoms. Sometimes, people may have heart disease without feeling any symptoms. Either way, it's important to understand what heart disease is about, how it works and what might cause it.

• 2

  Check your family history. One of the most reliable predictors of heart disease is your family history. The tendency to heart disease can be a genetic trait, so if your parents, uncles, cousins, siblings and other closely related family members have had heart attacks, strokes, persistent chest pains or other heart problems, you might be susceptible to the same.

• 3

  Evaluate your lifestyle. There are many contributors to heart disease that are not genetic. Do you smoke? Eat high-cholesterol foods? Experience regular stress? Do drugs? Do you have any other conditions that may indirectly cause damage or stress to your heart? Answering these questions can give you greater clarity on whether you might have heart disease or not.

• 4

  Evaluate your condition. Sometimes the answer is right in your body. Are you overweight? Often, being overweight puts excessive pressure on your heart and circulation system.

  If you suffer from a pounding chest or dizziness even when you're not exerting yourself, those are other signs of heart disease. If you have consistently high blood pressure, that might be an indicator that something serious is going on with your heart. If you find yourself often debilitated and fatigued, that may be a sign of heart disease.

  The biggest indicator of serious heart condition--a heart attack--is a crushing chest pain. Pain that radiates from your chest to the right or left sides (most typically the left) can also be an indicator of a serious condition, as are numbness, cold sweats, tingling and sudden fatigue.

• 5

  Contact your physician. Armed with information on your family history, your lifestyle and possible symptoms, your doctor will be able to diagnose your heart's condition and your susceptibility to heart disease. He may order a stress test to monitor your heart's activity during physical activity, like walking on a treadmill.