Dr Zubair Saleem
Recently, we had a senior patient who was experiencing coughing and difficulty breathing. He had been given nebulizers and antibiotics for his symptoms, but they didn’t seem to help. So, he came to our center to see a heart specialist because he never had high blood pressure or heart issues before. Dr Abid Hussain, our Senior Cardiologist checked him and found something alarming during the basic checkup – his blood pressure was very high, at 240/130. Then, when the doctor did an echocardiogram (a test to look at the heart), it showed that his heart was not working well because of his high, undiagnosed blood pressure.
Another test called NT-proBNP, which shows if someone has heart failure, also showed a very high level. When we looked at the prescriptions from his visits to other doctors for his chest problems, none of them mentioned checking his blood pressure. We gave those doctors the benefit of the doubt, thinking maybe they checked his blood pressure but just didn’t write it down. But when we asked the patient, he said no doctor had checked it. This patient had been treated for a cough that was actually caused by heart failure. This shows how important it is to check simple things like blood pressure and heart rate for all patients. If his blood pressure had been checked earlier, he could have been diagnosed sooner, and his condition might not have gotten so bad.