Congestive Heart Failure Symptoms & Medications

Congestive heart failure occurs when the heart cannot pump enough oxygen rich blood to the body. The result is that blood actually congests in the liver, abdomen, lower limbs and lungs. This is a serious and potentially fatal condition, and one that requires medical treatment, but frequently also lifestyle changes.

Causes

• Congestive heart failure is often due to coronary artery diseases, and heart attacks. However, other conditions can bring on congestive heart failure, or CHF. Hypertension, or high blood pressure, is one such condition. Others include faulty heart valves, cardiomyopathy (damaged heart muscle,) congestive heart defects, myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle,) arrhythmia and other diseases.

Symptoms

• The symptoms of congestive heart failure include a rapid or irregular heartbeat, fatigue, swelling in the ankles, legs, or abdomen, a persistent cough or wheeze, shortness of breath especially when lying down or with exertion, increased urination particularly at night, sudden weight gain, nausea, abdominal pain, and decreased appetite. The symptoms may be gradual in their appearance, and might be initially mistaken for another health problem.

Lifestyle changes

• Treatment for congestive heart failure should address healthy lifestyle choices that benefit heart health. Often physicians will recommend that patients with CHF restrict their salt intake to two grams a day. Doctors may also tell patients to limit their fluid intake to two quarts or less a day. Of course, abstaining from smoking and drinking is a vital lifestyle choice that makes a huge difference. Getting regular aerobic exercise is another important healthy habit that will benefit the heart.

Medications

• Medical treatment for congestive heart failure includes using ACE (angiotensin-converting enzyme) inhibitors, which dilate blood vessels, lowering blood pressure and improving blood flow, thereby lessening the strain on the heart. Another class of drugs, ARBs (angiotenson II receptor blockers) are prescribed if the ACE inhibitors are not tolerated by the patient, typically because of the side effect of a persistent cough. Other drugs commonly used include beta blockers, which slow your heart beat, and lower blood pressure, and digoxin which strengthens and slows the heart beat, and diuretics which work to keep fluid from accumulating in the body, by increasing the urine output. Treatment typically includes more than one drug.

Surgical treatments

• Besides medication, congestive heart failure patients might also require surgical procedures to treat their condition. Operations might be done to correct valve anomalies, or to correct arteries, or to put in a catheter or a biventrical pacemaker. Sometimes patients need a heart pump or an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator, which is a device that shocks the heart to make it return to a normal rhythm whenever it develops an abnormal beating pattern. Those with serious congestive heart failure may even require a heart transplant.