Congested Heart Failure Symptoms

How Is Cardiomyopathy Treated

Cardiomyopathy treatment focuses on controlling your symptoms. Treatment also slows the diseases progression. You will have regular checkups to keep an eye on your hearts health.

Your healthcare provider may recommend:

• Medications: Heart medications can improve your blood flow, control symptoms or treat underlying conditions. You may take blood thinners such as warfarin , beta blockers such as propranolol or medications to lower cholesterol.
• Devices to correct arrhythmias:Pacemakers or implantable cardioverter defibrillators treat irregular heart rhythms. These devices monitor your heartbeat. They send electrical impulses to your heart when an arrhythmia starts.
• Devices to improve blood flow: Some devices help your heart pump blood more efficiently. Cardiac resynchronization therapy devices control the contractions between the left and right sides of the heart. A left ventricular assist device helps your heart pump blood.
• Surgery: If you have severe symptoms or underlying heart conditions, your provider may recommend heart surgery. Providers usually only recommend open-heart surgery or a heart transplant when all other treatments have failed to bring relief.

What Are The Stages Of Congestive Heart Failure

The New York Heart Association has developed a scale that commonly is used to determine the functional capabilities of heart failure.

New York Heart Association Functional Classification of Heart Failure

Class I: Patients without limitation of physical activity.

Class II: Patients with slight limitation of physical capacity, in which marked increase in physical activity leads to fatigue, palpitations, dyspnea, or anginapain they are comfortable at rest.

Class III: Patients with marked limitation of physical activity in which minimal ordinary activity results in fatigue, palpitation, dyspnea, or angina pain they are comfortable at rest.

Class IV: Patients who are not only unable to carry on any physical activity without discomfort but who also have symptoms of heart failure or angina syndrome even at rest the patient’s discomfort increases if any physical activity is undertaken.

Life Expectancy With Congestive Heart Failure

The life expectancy of someone with congestive heart failure depends on the type of heart failure, the cause, the stage of the disease, and how effective treatment is.

When heart failure results from cardiomyopathy or coronary artery disease, a person typically has a less positive outlook than someone with heart failure in its earliest stage.

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How Can I Improve My Quality Of Life With Heart Failure

There are several things you can do to improve your quality of life if you have heart failure. Among them:

• Eat a healthy diet. Limit your consumption of sodium to less than 1,500 milligrams each day. Eat foods high in fiber. Limit foods high in trans fat, cholesterol, and sugar. Reduce total daily intake of calories to lose weight if necessary.
• Exercise regularly. A regular cardiovascular exercise program, prescribed by your doctor, will help improve your strength and make you feel better. It may also decrease heart failure progression.
• Don’t overdo it. Plan your activities and include rest periods during the day. Certain activities, such as pushing or pulling heavy objects and shoveling may worsen heart failure and its symptoms.
• Prevent respiratory infections. Ask your doctor about flu and pneumonia vaccines.
• Take your medications as prescribed. Do not stop taking them without first contacting your doctor.
• Get emotional or psychological support if needed. Heart failure can be difficult for your whole family. If you have questions, ask your doctor or nurse. If you need emotional support, social workers, psychologists, clergy, and heart failure support groups are a phone call away. Ask your doctor or nurse to point you in the right direction.

Nyha Functional Classification System

The New York Heart Association functional classification considers heart failure symptoms that happen during exercise to determine stage. Patients can go back and forth between stages depending on how well-controlled symptoms are on a given day.

• Stage 1: The person has heart disease, but it isnt yet causing symptoms or limiting activities.
• Stage 2: The person has mild symptoms that only slightly limit activity.
• Stage 3: The person has significant limitations to activities. He or she is only comfortable when resting.
• Stage 4: The person has major limitations and experiences symptoms when at rest.

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Early Warning Signs Of Congestive Heart Failure

HomeEarly Warning Signs of Congestive Heart Failure

Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States, impacting 659,000 people every year. Its most common in people over age 65. Congestive heart failure is a life-threatening condition caused by various forms of heart disease and other complications. While the term failure makes it seem like your heart has stopped working, it just means your heart is pumping too slowly to meet your bodys needs. Its a serious condition that you must monitor and manage carefully.

Congestive heart failure becomes progressively worse over time. While its a chronic condition, catching it early gives you a greater chance of living a longer and healthier life. The signs of congestive heart failure range from mild to severe, which is why its important to monitor your health as you age. This guide will explain the early signs of congestive heart failure so you can seek testing and treatment as soon as possible.

Is There A Treatment For Heart Failure

There are more treatment options available for heart failure than ever before. Tight control over your medications and lifestyle, coupled with careful monitoring, are the first steps. As the condition progresses, doctors specializing in the treatment of heart failure can offer more advanced treatment options.

The goals of treating heart failure are to try to keep it from getting worse , to ease symptoms, and to improve quality of life.

Some common types of medicines used to treat it are:

• Aldosterone antagonists
• Selective sinus node inhibitors
• SGLT2 inhibitor

Your doctor may also recommend a program called cardiac rehabilitation to help you exercise safely and keep up a heart-healthy lifestyle. It usually includes workouts that are designed just for you, education, and tips to lower your chance of heart trouble, like quitting smoking or changing your diet.

Cardiac rehab also offers emotional support. You can meet people like you who can help you stay on track.

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Causes Of Heart Failure

The heart is a double pump made up of four chambers. Deoxygenated blood from the veins enters the right upper chamber , is passed to the right lower chamber , and then pumped to the lungs.

Oxygenated blood from the lungs enters the left upper chamber and then enters the left lower chamber . The blood is then pumped around the body, under pressure, via arteries.

In a person with heart failure, one or both ventricles dont empty properly. This leads to increased pressure in the atria and the nearby veins. This backlog of blood can affect the kidneys and lungs interfering with their function and leading to a build-up of fluid in the lungs, abdominal organs and legs.

In some people with heart failure, rather than failed pumping of the blood from the ventricle, there is failed relaxation of the ventricle.

If the heart is not pumping and becomes stiff and unable to relax, it can cause the blood to pool in the hearts ventricles. This can cause pressure build up and can put strain on the heart.

Heart failure can be caused by several conditions, including:

How Is Chf Diagnosed

After reporting your symptoms to your doctor, they may refer you to a heart specialist, or cardiologist.

The cardiologist will perform a physical exam, which will involve listening to your heart with a stethoscope to detect abnormal heart rhythms.

To confirm an initial diagnosis, a cardiologist might order certain diagnostic tests to examine your hearts valves, blood vessels, and chambers.

There are a variety of tests used to diagnose heart conditions. Because these tests measure different things, your doctor may recommend a few to get a full picture of your current condition.

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What Procedures And Tests Diagnose Congestive Heart Failure

Congestive heart failure can be a medical emergency, especially if it acutely decompensates and the patient can present extremely ill with the inability to breathe adequately. In this situation, the ABCs of resuscitation need to be addressed while at the same time, the diagnosis of congestive heart failure is made.

Common tests that are done to help with the diagnosis of congestive heart failure include the following:

• Electrocardiogram to help assess heart rate, rhythm, and indirectly, the size of the ventricles and blood flow to the heart muscle.
• Blood tests may include a complete blood count , electrolytes, glucose, BUN, and creatinine .
• B-type natriuretic peptide may help decide if a patient has shortness of breath from congestive heart failure or a different cause. It is a chemical that is located in the heart ventricles and may be released when these muscles are overloaded.
• Echocardiography or ultrasound testing of the heart is often recommended to assess the anatomy and the function of the heart. In addition to being able to evaluate the heart valves and muscle, the test can look at blood flow within the heart, watch the chambers of the heart contract, and measure the ejection fraction .

Other tests may be considered to evaluate and monitor a patient with suspected congestive heart failure, depending upon the clinical situation.

What Are The Signs And Symptoms Of Congestive Heart Failure

Shortness of breath

The hallmark and most common symptom of left heart failure is shortness of breath and may occur:

While lying flat

While awakening the person from sleep or

Due to fluid accumulation in the lungs or the inability of the heart to be efficient enough to pump blood to the organs of the body when called upon in times of exertion or stress.

Chest Pain

Chest pain or angina may be associated, especially if the underlying cause of the failure is coronary heart disease.

Right heart failure, left heart failure, or both

People with right heart failure leak fluid into the tissue and organs that deliver blood to the right heart through the vena cava.

Backpressure in capillary blood vessels causes them to leak water into space between cells and commonly the fluid can be found in the lowest parts of the body.

Gravity causes fluid to accumulate in the feet and ankles but as more fluid accumulates, it may creep up to involve all of the lower legs.

Fluid can also accumulate within the liver causing it to swell and within the abdominal cavity .

Ascites and hepatomegaly may make the patient feel bloated, nauseated, and have abdominal pain with the feeling of distension.

Depending upon their underlying illness and the clinical situation, patients may have symptoms of right heart failure, left heart failure, or both.

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Contact Sonas For Home Health Care Services

If your family member has recently been diagnosed with congestive heart failure, now may be the ideal time to consider home health care. A home care service provider can be with your loved one on a customized schedule that is right for your family.

This means that even if you are not able to be with them, you can be confident in knowing they are getting everything they need to stay healthy, safe, and comfortable, as well as maintain as much independence and control as possible.

If you or an aging loved one are considering home health care services in Florida, contact the caring staff at Sonas Home Health Care. Call today .

Diagnosis Of Congestive Heart Failure

There are several tests to diagnose congestive heart failure starting with a regular physical examination. Your healthcare provider will be able to diagnose any heart failure symptoms by just taking a look at your medical history and current condition.

If your doctor believes you have some symptoms that might be associated with heart failure and you also fall in the high-risk category, then your doctor might suggest you go for an electrocardiogram.

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What Is An Ejection Fraction

An ejection fraction is a measurement of the blood pumped out of your heart with each beat, expressed in a percentage. It can be measured using an echocardiogram , multigated acquisition scan, nuclear stress test, magnetic resonance imaging , or during a cardiac catheterization. A normal ejection fraction is between 50% and 70%.

Facts About Heart Failure In The United States

• About 6.2 million adults in the United States have heart failure.1
• In 2018, heart failure was mentioned on 379,800 death certificates .1
• Heart failure costs the nation an estimated $30.7 billion in 2012.2 This total includes the cost of health care services, medicines to treat heart failure, and missed days of work.

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Medications For Heart Failure

Certain medications can help treat heart failure and its underlying cause:

• Aldosterone blockers block the effects of the hormone aldosterone, encouraging the body to release sodium and water. They also help prevent scarring in the heart.
• Angiotensin receptor-neprilysin inhibitor : Treatment with sacubitril-valsartan reduces excess fluid in the body and relaxes blood vessels. This makes it easier for your heart to pump blood. Alternatives to ARNIs include angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors andangiotensin receptor blockers .
• Beta blockers make the heart beat more slowly and with less force. They also help keep heart rhythm regular.
• Sodium-glucose transport protein 2 inhibitors are diabetes drugs that have recently been found to be very beneficial in heart failure. They help remove glucose via the kidneys into the urine.

Other medications can relieve the heart failure symptoms:

• Diuretics reduce the amount of fluid in the body.
• Vasodilators dilate the blood vessels and reduce the hearts workload.
• Digoxin helps the heart beat stronger with a more regular rhythm.
• Anti-arrhythmics control arrhythmia and maintain normal heart rhythm.

Causes Of Congestive Heart Failure

Before we move to symptoms or anything else, lets first discuss the major causes of congestive heart failure. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggest everyone in these categories make sure they are taking good care of their health and consulting with their health care provider.

Ignoring these causes can cause heart failure, and it can result in death. Here are the top causes of congestive heart failure.

• High blood pressure
• Viral infection to the heart muscles
• Alcohol consumption

As you can see in the above-given list, there are several major causes of congestive heart failure, and people who fall in any of the above-given categories should make sure they are consulting their heart health with their health care provider regularly.

People who are already struggling with any heart disease, including heart attack, stroke, fat deposits in arteries, and high blood pressure, should consult with their health care provider as early as possible.

Those people should also take a deep look at every symptom of congestive heart failure and not ignore any of them. Congestive heart failure is known to cause millions of deaths each year, even in the United States.

You might not realize it, but things like obesity, tobacco, and alcohol also impose a huge risk of developing heart failure.

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How Is Heart Failure Treated

Your treatment will depend on the type of heart failure you have and, in part, what caused it. Medications and lifestyle behaviors are part of every treatment plan. Your healthcare provider will talk to you about the best treatment plan for you. Treatment is the same, regardless of gender.

As heart failure gets worse, your heart muscle pumps less blood to your organs, and you move toward the next stage of heart failure. Since you cant move backward through the heart failure stages, the goal of treatment is to keep you from moving forward through the stages or to slow down the progression of your heart failure.

Stage A treatment

The usual treatment plan for people with Stage A heart failure includes:

• Regular exercise, being active, walking every day.
• Stopping the use of tobacco products.
• Treatment for high blood pressure .
• Treatment for high cholesterol.
• Not drinking alcohol or using recreational drugs.
• Angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor or an angiotensin II receptor blocker if you have coronary artery disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, or other vascular or cardiac conditions.
• Beta-blocker if you have high blood pressure.

Stage B treatment

The usual treatment plan for people with Stage B heart failure includes:

Stage C treatment

The usual treatment plan for people with Stage C HF-rEF includes:

If the treatment causes your symptoms to get better or stop, you still need to continue treatment to slow the progression to Stage D.

Stage D treatment

How To Treat And Prevent Congestive Heart Failure

Treatment for heart failure varies depending on the severity of your condition. Adopting a healthy lifestyle tends to significantly impact treating and preventing congestive heart failure. If you form these habits early, you can lower your risk of developing heart failure in the first place. Consider the following strategies to prevent heart failure:

• Avoid smoking: People who smoke are 2-4 times more likely to develop coronary heart disease that can lead to heart failure.
• Eat healthy foods: Eating primarily fruits, vegetables, low-fat dairy, healthy fats and lean protein promotes your heart health and overall well-being.
• Stay active: Exercising regularly is great for your heart, and it helps control your weight. Maintaining a healthy weight lowers your risk of heart failure.
• Take care of yourself: Many types of heart disease can lead to heart failure. If you have an existing cardiovascular condition, monitor and manage it carefully. Take your medications as prescribed to maintain your heart health.

For most people, heart failure is a lifelong condition. Fortunately, treatment can reduce your symptoms and increase your chances of enjoying a long and healthy life. Here are some treatment options to slow the progression of congestive heart failure:

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