Holidays can be major concern for heart patients

Heart disease does not take time off for the holidays. In fact, it may increase during the holidays because of additional stress factors. That’s the caution offered by Oklahoma City cardiologist Dr. Marcus Smith.

Dr. Smith understands that people may be reluctant to see a doctor during the COVID-19 pandemic, but he knows that putting off needed care may lead to even bigger problems.

“Make sure you are balancing your safety precautions from COVID with the likelihood of having cardiac issues that could be much more prevalent in terms of taking your life,” Dr. Smith said.

Heart disease is the leading cause of death for men, women, and people of most racial and ethnic groups in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 655,000 Americans die from heart disease each year – that’s one in every four deaths.

“The pandemic in general has allowed us to fall back on not exercising as much, giving ourselves a break on the diet and eating and drinking more than we did previously,” Dr. Smith said. “All those things makes this a more vulnerable holiday season than holiday seasons in the past.”

He encourages his patients to be mindful of this and cautions that additional excesses during the holidays can lead to even more heart concerns. Among those is a syndrome called “holiday heart.”

“Holiday heart is a term used to describe the instance of increased atrial fibrillation during the holidays because of excessive alcohol consumption,” Dr. Smith said. The condition also can occur in healthy individuals who don’t have underlying heart disease.

Don’t ignore symptoms, but don’t think you have to go to a crowded hospital to get quality treatment.

Dr. Smith specializes in the management and treatment of coronary artery disease (CAD), peripheral vascular disease (PVD), heart failure, and cardiac imaging at the CardioVascular Health Clinic, an out-patient facility which he describes as having “all the creature comforts of a hospital in an out-patient setting where you don't have sick patients.”

“We have a distinct advantage with people feeling more comfortable coming to our facility rather than a big hospital where there are COVID patients,” he said. “It's much easier to navigate the system logistically and safely in our environment than in a hospital environment.”

Even though the out-patient clinic is typically considered safer, he said the clinic is taking extra precautions like COVID-question screening and temperature checks before patients enter the facility. Also, flow within the clinic is managed so that there is not a clustering of patients at any one place in the facility.

In addition, he said the clinic is screening patients very closely and recommending some delay their visits or take advantage of telemedicine options.

“If this is a one-year follow-up and you are doing stable, maybe don’t come in right now, and we can even offer you a tele-visit where we can navigate the lesser concerning issues,” Dr. Smith said.

"As a health community, we've got to use our resources wisely. We don't need to be bringing people into the hospital environment. We need to keep them for the real sick people.

“The advantage of an out-patient center like ours has been proven financially, but it's much more proven in the last nine months from a safety standpoint,” he said. “Patients in my patient population are much less likely to ignore their health care because they have an option in our facility to get safe health care that may not be available to a lot of people who are getting hospital-based health care.”

For more information about the CardioVascular Health Clinic and its services, go to cvhealthclinic.com or call 405-369-5443.