My Husband Is 80 Years Old And Has CHF And

Posted on Thu, 21 Mar 2019

Medically reviewed by Ask A Doctor - 24x7 Medical Review Team

Thu, 21 Mar 2019 Answered on

Last reviewed on

Question : My husband is 80 years old and has CHF and COPD. Today he is having extreme chills with nausea. He did have a cold last week and is still coughing occasionally. His cardiologist recently added lisinopril to his medications. Is it possible that he is reacting to this new medication?

Answered by Dr. Ilir Sharka (1 hour later)

Brief Answer:
I would recommend as follows:

Detailed Answer:
Hello!

Welcome to Ask a Doctor service!

I passed carefully through your question and would explain that cough could be related to lisinopril adverse effects.

But the chills and nausea do not seem to be related to lisinopril. A lung infection can not be excluded either.

For this reason, I recommend consulting with his attending physician for a physical exam, a chest X ray study and some blood lab tests (complete blood count, PCR, ESR for inflammation and D-Dimmer levels for pulmonary embolism).

A chest angio CT scan may be needed, in case of suspicions on a possible pulmonary embolism.

Hope to have been helpful!

Kind regards,

Dr. Ilir Sharka, Cardiologist

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar