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Heart Surgery: Reducing Your Heart Disease Risk Factors
Heart Surgery: Reducing Your Heart Disease Risk Factorsafter Heart SurgeryYour heart surgery may have fixed your heart, but it did not cure your Coronary Artery Disease. Following heartsurgery, your goal is to protect the long-term health of your heart.Start by reducing your risk factors, the things that can increase the damage to your heart. There are some riskfactors you can’t change, but there are some you can. Risk factors you can work to change include: Unhealthycholesterol levels, Smoking and Second-Hand Smoke, High blood pressure, an inactive lifestyle, beingoverweight, Diabetes, and stress.If you have not done so already, work with your cardiac care team to determine which risk factors you need toimprove.“We will look at what their risk factors are for heart disease and set goals for that patient with the patientuh on what lifestyle changes they need to make.”Many controllable risk factors can be improved by making lifestyle changes.“So, in the long run what we do here in the hospital helps people acutely become better and sort ofsurvive. However long-term people need to make lifestyle modifications with diet and exercise and takethe proper medications on a routine basis to help what we do here last a lifetime.”If you are overweight take steps to lose weight by making healthier food choices and getting physically active.If you smoke, quit. Control your blood pressure and cholesterol by making healthier food choices and takingany prescribed medications. If you have Diabetes, follow your management plan to maintain a healthy glucoselevel. And find ways to reduce stress in your life.“Well when I was discharged, I was put on a low fat, low sodium diet. I really had to be more aware ofsodium and like pre-packaged foods.”“Of course, right after surgery, uhm. I felt tired, but I felt more rested every day when I woke up. There’sno doubt in my mind uh, my physical feelings throughout the day are much more positive than theywere prior to surgery.”Making lifestyle changes can be difficult, especially at first. Start slowly and take one day at a time. Every littlesuccess is good for your heart. If you do have a set-back, don’t get discouraged. Stay committed to makingchanges for your long-term heart health.Attending Cardiac Rehabilitation can help you develop the skills you need to properly care for your heart for thelong-term. It is also a great place to work and share with others making similar changes.“Yeah, at- at Cardiac Rehab, uh these people in your similar situation as you, I mean, you’re makingnew friends with them because uh you uh you have a lot of similarities involved, uh you know, in this- inthis project.”“When Cardiac Rehab is over, the exercising is not over. I’m going to continue and for the rest of my lifehopefully.”Reducing your heart disease risk factors will help you maintain your heart health and may lessen the chance offurther health problems in the future.This program is for informational purposes only. Publisher disclaims all guarantees regarding the accuracy, completeness,or suitability of this video for medical decision making. For all health related issues please contact your healthcare provider.HCHA10189B EN HeartSurgeryReducingYourHeartDiseaseRiskFactorsAfterHeartSurgery.pdf© The Wellness NetworkPage 1 of 1
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Heart & Vascular Center
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