HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — More than 200,000 people in the United States are diagnosed with heart failure each year, but it’s a disease people sometimes go months without even realizing they have.
“People slowly start developing symptoms, and sometimes because this is so slowly, they start getting used to it,” said Dr. Carlos Rueda, of Marshall Health.
“So you’re going to see somebody that maybe before, was able to walk and get all the groceries and do all the shopping with no problems. Then slowly, slowly, slowly they start seeing limitations until the point that they think that this is the new baseline. They think that there is nothing wrong, but there’s a lot of wrong.”
Rueda, a board-certified, fellowship-trained heart failure specialist working at Cabell Huntington Hospital and St. Mary’s Medical Center, said he sees the area’s heart failure patients and has to assess whether the patients can survive by changing their lifestyle or if they will need a heart transplant.
Heart failure is when the heart does not pump blood the way it should. Symptoms of heart failure include shortness of breath, fatigue, swelling in the legs, ankles or feet, irregular heartbeat and possible chest pain if the heart starts failing after a heart attack.
