When Should I Be Worried about Fatigue?

If fatigue has become just another aspect of your (barely) waking hours, it could be a sign of a heart problem. Extreme fatigue can signal heart failure or, less commonly, coronary artery disease (CAD). We highly recommend that you seek medical attention if you feel an abnormal amount of fatigue throughout the day to either rule out heart failure or get treatment before it progresses.

While even a week of feeling drained is typical at times, fatigue that lasts longer than a week or two without improvement or explanation is a sign of an underlying health issue. If you frequently wake up feeling exhausted after sleeping soundly through the night, have difficulty completing simple tasks, or unintentionally fall asleep throughout the day regularly, it is highly likely that you are experiencing an abnormal amount of fatigue, for which you should speak to a doctor about treatment.

When you have an unhealthy heart, your whole body is affected. Your heart pumps and funnels blood throughout your body, carrying oxygen and nutrients to every vital organ to function correctly. As a result, when your heart cannot pump and channel blood throughout the body strong and fast enough, the rest of your body has to work extra hard for you to keep functioning. Such is the case with heart failure and fatigue. With heart failure, your heart does not work as efficiently as expected, which decreases the amount of blood it pumps and funnels throughout the body. Your heart chambers respond by stretching to hold more blood, which is a temporary solution to keeping blood moving, but this also weakens your heart’s muscles, further weakening its ability to pump blood efficiently. When blood cannot get to your brain, lungs, and muscles fast and strong enough, one of the results is constant and relentless fatigue, often accompanied by weakness, dizziness, and confusion.

Our board-certified cardiologists and cardiology therapists have a wealth of knowledge, experience, and skills to provide high-quality care for any extreme fatigue you have related to a heart disorder! Two of the excellent treatment options we provide at Sterling Heart Care include cardiac rehabilitation programs and heart flow therapy, or external counter pulsation (ECP) therapy. We offer one or both of these non-invasive treatment options to our clients.

With our cardiac rehabilitation programs, we provide you with educational resources, nutritional and healthy mindset workshops, exercise sessions, and more to restore the health of your heart. Our cardiac rehabilitation programs are based on the three pillars of exercise, nutrition, and a healthy mindset.

ECP therapy, on the other hand, involves wrapping blood pressure cuffs around your lower legs and upper thighs or buttocks, which inflate and deflate in a counter pattern to your cardiac cycle to force blood flow to your heart. In so doing, your heart accommodates the extra blood flow by forming new blood vessels to funnel the blood through, while improving the blood flow in existing blood vessels. Each treatment session takes about one hour and is recommended as a daily treatment for over five to 12 weeks.

If you have a heart condition that is causing you excessive fatigue, come to Sterling Heart Care! You can schedule an appointment with us through our website or by calling us. We serve patients from Buffalo NY, Kenmore NY, Pine Hill NY, Sloan NY, Cleveland Hill NY, and Kaisertown NY.