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You are in: Home > Heart Information > Living With Heart Conditions > Heart Failure > Helping Yourself To Stay Well

Helping Yourself To Stay Well

It’s important to do what you can to ease the strain on your heart and keep as healthy as possible. In particular:

• Stop smoking
• Eat a healthy diet
• Control cholesterol
• Moderate alcohol intake
• Keep as active as possible: some hospitals and heart failure services can offer specialised, individual exercise programmes to do at home or at a class.
• Maintain a sensible body weight: this applies to those who are underweight as well as those who are overweight. Ask your doctor or nurse about this. Sometimes as your heart failure worsens you can lose too much weight and you may need some supplements to your diet.
• Vaccinations and avoiding infections: it is advisable to have the annual flu immunisation and the pneumonia immunisation (only needed once) to give yourself protection against infection.
  Green / yellow spit might indicate a chest infection. Prompt treatment with antibiotics is very important.
• Look after your skin: your skin can become fragile from being stretched, especially over the shins. Keeping the skin lubricated with a cream or oil may help to keep the skin from breaking.

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