Causes of Rapid Congestive Heart Failure

Congestive heart failure, often referred to as simply CHF, is a condition characterized by the inability of the heart to supply the body with enough blood to meet its overall needs. With CHF, your organs don't receive the proper amount of oxygen and nutrients to properly function, resulting in damage to tissue and leading to other serious complications, especially when left untreated. Normally, conditions that cause your heart to fail develop over a prolonged period of time, but there is the potential to suffer from rapid congestive heart failure, which shares a number of the same contributing factors as standard CHF.

Coronary Artery Disease

• One of the main culprits of congestive heart failure is a condition known as coronary artery disease. With this condition, your arteries begin to accumulate fatty deposits that cause the blood vessels to narrow, resulting in a deprivation of blood to the heart. This can lead to a weakening in one or more of your cardiac muscles, impeding its function and the supply of blood throughout your body.

Hypertension

• Another potential cause of rapid congestive heart failure is hypertension. More commonly referred to as high blood pressure, the force with which your blood is pumped through your blood vessels increases greatly, causing your heart to work at much higher rate. This can then lead to a change in the overall structure of your heart, resulting in a weakness of the cardiac muscles that reduces blood flow to the rest of your body.

Cardiomyopathy

• Rapid congestive heart failure may also be a result of cardiomyopathy, which is essentially damage sustained within the muscles of your heart. Infection is probably the most common cause of cardiac muscle damage, but you may also develop this condition from alcohol and substance abuse as well as lupus or issues involving your thyroid. If you sustain damage, especially severe damage, your heart may fail to pump enough blood throughout your body.

Defects

• It is also possible to suffer a rapid congestive heart failure due to a defect of the heart in the chambers, muscles or even valves. This defect may be something you were born with or something that has developed over time, but it could impede the overall function of the heart and cause it to suddenly fail.

Infections

• Certain infections of the heart may also cause you to suffer from rapid congestive heart failure. This is largely due to the effect bacteria or viruses have on the overall structure of the heart, causing damage to the muscles, chambers or valves. If damage is severe, it can cause the heart to later fail and deprive the body of blood.

Scar Tissue

• Sometimes, rapid congestive heart failure is a result of scar tissue in or along the heart itself. The development of scar tissue is typically due to some sort of cardiac event, like a heart attack or myocardial infraction, that has seen a sudden deprivation of blood to the heart . If blood flow to the heart isn't returned in a relatively short period of time, damage can set in and healthy tissue can be replaced with scar tissue. Later, this can affect the function of the heart and lead to failure.

Arrhythmias

• While not necessarily as common as other causes of this condition, an arrhythmia can lead to rapid congestive heart failure. When your heart suffers any sort of rhythmic issues, such as irregular or uneven heart beats as well as rapid or pounding heart rates, the muscles of your heart can weaken, leading to an inability to transport blood throughout the body.