2896 Managing Heart Failure: The importance of getting your medication right
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Hello.
Once you have been diagnosed with heart failure, your doctor or cardiologist will start you on some tablets.
This is because heart failure is
predominantly managed with tablets,
and this video will explain how we
find the right mix of medication for you.
If you have heart failure, your heart does not pump
blood around your body as well as it used to.
However, tablets can improve your symptoms,
and help your heart to pump better over time.
Your cardiologist and heart failure nurse will
ask you to take a combination of tablets.
The tablets that we prescribe are recommended
by national and international panels of experts.
You may take several different tablets and these
may be different to someone else with heart failure,
but they will be appropriate for you.
We will explain which tablets you must take,
and why you need them.
The more tablets you can tolerate, the more
your heart failure symptoms will improve.
Whilst your cardiologist will
prescribe some tablets initially,
we need to find out if they are
the right mix of medications for you.
To do this, your heart failure nurse will monitor you in a number of ways and alter your prescription as necessary.
This can take time and we won’t necessarily
find the right combination immediately.
We will monitor you in the following ways:
Blood pressure, pulse checks and blood tests.
These tests are done at your
general practice, or in the hospital.
Monitoring your symptoms and any side effects.
The aim will be to get you on a
regimen of tablets that suits you.
We will listen to how you tolerate the tablets we give you
and will ask you keep a diary of
any changes in your symptoms,
such as shortness of breath, coughing or leg swelling.
Once we have found the right combination
of tablets which suit you and your heart,
you will need to keep taking them until we tell you
to change them because your condition has altered.
Once we have found the right tablets for you, we will
ask your GP to take charge of your medication
so that you can get your prescription from them as
you would with any other tablets.
You will meet your cardiologist when
you are first diagnosed with heart failure
and they will continue to see
you in clinic every six months.
Make a note of any questions that you
want to ask them at these meetings.
Whilst we are optimising your medication your primary point of contact will you be your heart failure nurse.
Once your GP takes control of prescribing your tablets,
they will become the first person you should contact if you develop side effects, or if your symptoms worsen.
The British Heart Foundation website is also an
excellent additional source of information.