Interview Section : Healthtalkonline

Full list of topics

Discovery :
What is heart failure?
Getting the diagnosis
Impact of the diagnosis
What causes it: heart attack and angina
Other causes: valvular disease and cardiomyopathy
People's ideas about causes
Stress and heart failure
Feeling breathless, tired and lifeless
Oedema, palpitations and wakefulness
Looking for information

Tests and treatments :
Tests to measure heart function and strength
Angiograms and angioplasty
Beta-blockers, ACE inhibitors and diuretics
Warfarin, digoxin and statins
Side effects of medication
Surgery and medical devices for heart failure
Heart transplants

Follow-up and support :
Specialist nurses
Cardiac rehabilitation and support groups
Follow-up visits, hospitals and GP's
Communicating with medical staff

Living with it :
Home life and everyday routines
Sports, hobbies and activities
Travelling, holidays and trips away from home
Coping with medication
Eating, drinking and exercise
Bad days, anxiety and depression
What carers think
Complementary therapies
Reaching acceptance
Messages to others

Search the whole site
Search in this condition

Heart failure

People's stories

Aged 80+

Interview HF25

Interview HF25

Age at Interview: 82
Sex: Male
Age at Diagnosis: 81
Background: Retired technical officer; married 1 child.

Brief outline:Angina for many years. Heart failure angina for many years (unsure when it started). Heart failure diagnosed 2002.

To watch or read an interview clip, click on the heading that interests you. Either a video,audio recording or text will open, depending on the clip

To read what was said without video or audio, click here
To print the interview’s text, click here

Describes how he lost interest in his hobbies for a time.
Print Well actually it happened last October. I just began to feel that I had something wrong with me, I didn't know what obviously. Very weary, strange for me, I wasn't sleeping very well. Normally I go to bed and you know I'm lucky if I wake up myself in the morning but I just wasn't sleeping at all well. And it just proceeded to get worse and worse and worse. I called in the doctor and I'm afraid I didn't, there's something I find very strange, I didn't appreciate that I had heart problems. He didn't seem to spell it out to me although maybe I should have known that I was taking remedies for. My main trouble is that my heart is not pumping fast enough and even, well just a few weeks ago, when I had my iron done at the hospital before they started the operation they checked all those things, and they said, 'Oh it's very low'. And they went so far as to phone up the surgery here to see what they said about it. And then again, about the same time we had our annual health check and the nurse, she commented so I'm a wee bit worried that my heart is still, you know I might want to go a bit faster! But the difference in me now to 6 months ago is just fantastic. Well I lost interest in everything. Normally I'm mad about cars, motor sport, caravans. I've got books come in every month and I just stopped reading them. You know, it sounds strange, although I didn't realise it was happening very much, did I? [looks at wife] .

Mail to a friend