Many circulatory and heart problems can lead to a heart attack. These episodes can be demoralizing and scary, and may leave permanent damage or impairment. Yet a warning can be just the jolt needed to get you to change your eating habits and lifestyle radically, with very beneficial effects, as many people have discovered.
High cholesterol levels and fatty and plaque deposits, with resultant severe blockages in the system, can cause heart attacks. Other causes can be high blood pressure, clotting of blood vessels (thrombosis), and blood stickiness, caused by platelets clumping together and blocking veins. Thus anyone who has any of these problems should be aware that there are some very useful herbal first-aid measures available; I have seen them prevent what could probably have been much more serious situations, time and again. The following first-aid measures can be used in cases of suspected heart attack or stroke, while waiting for an ambulance:
Cayenne tincture should always be the first step. It helps to relieve the heart spasm, partly because it is rich in magnesium. It also stabilizes blood pressure quickly. Always have some tincture at hand—in your handbag, car, or kitchen cupboard. Put one teaspoon in a glass of warm water and drink as much as possible immediately.
Next, take a few drops of lobelia leaf tincture. This will also relax spasms, relieve shock, and balance whatever extremes of the nervous system are being displayed. The patient will usually feel a difference in moments.
If you have it at hand and can remember to use it, place a drop or two of camphor essential oil over the patient’s heart and under the nose. Camphor is a vasoconstrictor and increases blood pressure quite quickly. It’s a useful item to have at hand for those in a risk category.
The following suggestions are useful for long-term treatment:
Eat an appropriate diet.
Long-term use of heart herbs such as hawthorn flower, leaf, and berry can make huge improvements.
If you smoke, then stop.
Good food, exercise, and a generally good lifestyle are essential.
Doctors often prescribe aspirin for people who’ve had a heart attack because it helps to thin the blood. Unfortunately, aspirin can really disrupt your stomach lining and your digestion. You may wish to include meadowsweet leaf and white willow bark tea—both rich in salicylate—or red clover flower tea, which is rich in blood thinners.
Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is often recommended as a protection against heart attacks in older women. In fact, a nineteen-year study by the department of family and preventive medicine at the University of California, San Diego, found no change in heart attack death rates among menopausal women taking HRT. Balanced hormone levels are important, however, including thyroid function, so women should use herbs to balance these—as should men.
Massage oils made with lavender, frankincense, geranium, or ylang-ylang (grades 1 or 2) would also be useful, and a few drops in the bath would be calming.
This Heart Attack Causes article is taken from :
The complete home guide to herbs, natural healing, and nutrition / Jill Rosemary Davies.
