Follow up care
Adult with congenital heart disease are at risk of developing complications, even if surgery was done to repair the defect during childhood. Lifelong follow-up care is important. Follow-up care may include regular health checkups and occasional bloodwork and imaging exams to screen for complications. How often you’ll need to see your health care provider will depend on whether your congenital heart disease is mild or complex.
Coping and support.
As a patient with CHD, vital information that you should have about your condition include the name and details of the heart condition and how it is being treated, how to prevent heart infections (endocarditis), if necessary, ant exercise guidelines and work restrictions, birth control and family planning information, health insurance information and coverage options, dental care information, including whether you need antibiotics before dental procedures, the symptoms of your specific type of congenital heart disease, how often you should have health check ups and information about your medication and side effects.
What as a CHD patient should you ask?
Educate yourself. You should know how often you should be screened for complications from your heart defect, how best you can manage other health conditions together with the CHD, find out whether there are brochures or other printed material that you can have, what websites would be recommended for you, what would be the most likely cause of your symptoms, what tests you might require to do, what treatments are available to you and which would be recommended for you and whether there are diet or activity restrictions that you need to follow.
The doctor should inquire about…
The frequency of the symptoms; do they come and go, or do they appear all the time, how severe the symptoms are, does anything seem to improve the symptoms, what, if anything, worsens the symptoms, what’s your lifestyle like, including the diet, tobacco use, physical activity and alcohol use.