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Cardiovascular Disease is a termed used to describe a host of conditions affecting the heart or blood vessels including: Arrhythmias, Coronary Artery Disease, Heart Failure, Heart Valve Disease, Aortic Disease, Heart Attack, Congenital Heart Disease, Cardiomyopathy, Stroke, High Blood Pressure, Peripheral Arterial Disease, Cerebrovascular Disease, Angina, Atherosclerosis, Cardiac Dysrhythmias, Heart Disease, Pericarditis, Pulmonary Hypertension, High Cholesterol, Rheumatic Fever, Aneurysm, Aortic Stenosis, Atrial Fibrillation and Brugada Syndrome.
Many of these will be unfamiliar to you but the important thing to note is that these are ASYMPTOMATIC. In other words show no signs or symptoms till it is too late. That is why we push for regular Health Checks.
By being aware of your Blood Pressure we can help through lifestyle advice to realign your blood pressure. Allowing your heart to continue pumping blood at a fast rate will damage not only your heart but blood vessels.
By being aware of your weight and making the efforts to lose weight can reduce the pressure on your heart.
By being aware of your blood sugar we can help to reduce your risk of Diabetes through lifestyle advice. Diabetes is a key risk factor in Cardiovascular risk. Untreated high Blood Glucose Levels can lead to Kidney damage, Eye damage, Blindness, Heart Disease, Stroke and can reduce your life expectancy.
The Pharmacist Group offer Cholesterol Checks as part of the Hormone and Blood Marker Testing. By being aware of your cholesterol level you can work to lower your risk. The damage caused by over eating on fatty, fried food cannot be erased completely. The lipids (fats) in you blood can come together to form plaques that line the inner blood vessels. This reduces the size of the lumen of the blood vessel. When blood passes through the vessels there is a risk of parts of plaques falling off and blocking blood vessels or indeed increasing in size to cause blockade. This is an ASYMPATOMIC condition also.
We recommend anyone over the age of 30 years or overweight or with a family history of Heart Disease to have a Health Check regularly.
Blood Pressure readings are recorded using a monitor. A cuff will be placed on your arm and will tighten. This may be uncomfortable but will not hurt. If your readings are high we will repeat several times. There may be instances where we will ask you to return in a month following lifestyle advice to see if an improvement can be made. In other instances we will refer you to your GP.
The Blood Glucose test is a fasting test. We will collect a sample of blood through finger prick and the results will be available immediately. Again we may ask following lifestyle advice to return. We offer through The Hormone and Blood Marker Service a Diabetes test that can give a clearer picture of your Diabetes risk if preferred. These results will be available for you to take to your GP.
Measuring your BMI will require 2 measurements; one of your height and one of your weight. We can calculate if you are holding too much weight and will advice on how to manage this better.
Stress can also be a risk factor and if you have an known stress or feel you are under stress please feel free to share. This will help us create a better plan for your health.
If you would like us to visit your local community please send us a message and we will do our best to accommodate you.
email: jas@thepharmacistgroup.org.uk
