Heart Failure (Congestive Heart Failure)
What is heart failure?
Heart failure, also known as congestive heart failure or CHF, occurs when the heart is no longer able to pump blood efficiently around the body and/or is unable to fill with blood properly. The result is that the body will not be getting enough oxygen, and may retain fluid.
What causes heart failure?
There are a number of potential causes for heart failure. The most common are high blood pressure, other heart disease including heart attack, and narrowing of the arteries (atherosclerosis). Each one of these makes it harder for the heart to pump blood round the body. The heart compensates by pumping harder.
After a period of time of pumping harder, the walls of the heart both stretch (like an overused rubber band) and then thicken, which then results in the heart wall becoming less flexible and so the heart is less able to pump efficiently. When the heart pumps less efficiently there is a reduced amount of blood being pumped out of the heart.
Effects of heart failure
The pulmonary artery goes from the heart to the lungs. When there is less blood getting pumped to the lungs, this means that there is less oxygen taken up from the lungs. This leads to the rest of the body becoming short of oxygen.
Additionally poor blood flow often causes the body to retain fluid (edema). This can lead to swollen ankles and legs and a build up of fluid in the lungs, which can cause shortness of breath and difficulty breathing.
Symptoms As heart failure progresses and starts to affect the functioning of the body, common symptoms may include one or more of the following;
- Difficulty breathing
- Wheezing and/or cough
- Breathlessness when lying down without lots of pillows
- Sudden breathlessness in the middle of the night
- Fatigue
- Cold hands and feet
- Swelling of ankles and legs due to fluid retention
- Weight gain due to fluid retention
- Increased urination at night
- Feeling of a bloated or tender stomach
- Confusion and/or memory problems
- Lightheadedness
All of these symptoms, of course, can have other causes so it is important to get evaluated. Early treatment will slow the progression of heart failure so that there is as little as possible interference with the activities of life. There are a number of different classes of drugs that can be used to treat heart failure.
Risk factors for a heart failure
Factors for which you may be able to do something
- High blood pressure
- Hyperthyroid (too much thyroid hormone)
- Hypothyroid (too little thyroid hormone)
- Cardiovascular disease and heart attack
- High cholesterol
- Diabetes
- Alcohol abuse
- Smoking
Risk factors that you cannot change
- Heredity – your family genetics
- Age – risk increases with age
- Some kidney diseases
- Some heart diseases eg. valve diseases
After being diagnosed with heart failure
In addition to taking your medications, a number of lifestyle changes also help. Getting regular exercise and eliminating any of your risk factors will help. Frequently, restricted intake of dietary salt (sodium) is advised. Being overweight puts more stress on the heart and body, so a program of weight loss is usually recommended.
Getting regular exercise sounds like the last thing that you should do, but regular appropriate exercise is recommended for all stages of heart failure. Several studies, that compared those on a program of regular exercise to those that did not exercise regularly, have shown that the group that exercised did better both with regards to heart failure itself, but also in mental attitude, which is also important.