Welcome to our website. The title and topic of our website is very serious. It is our hope that people who are searching for answers about congestive heart failure recognize the serious nature of the disease and do not ignore any potential symptoms. The best person to diagnose congestive heart failure is your physician. Everyone should get annual physical check ups, answer questions openly and ask questions about any concerns they may have during their annual check-up. I’m constantly surprised at people that do not ask their doctor questions because they figure, if there was something wrong, their doctor would have found it. While modern medicine has great screening tools for physical health and fitness, if you have any concerns, please ask your doctor! The purpose of this website is to educate people on the symptoms of congestive heart failure so that they may recognize the risk and intervene as there are treatment options which should always be discussed with your doctor.

So, let’s get to it:

What is congestive heart failure?

According to the American Heart Association, congestive heart failure is a condition where the heart cannot circulate enough blood to the other organs in the body.

What causes congestive heart failure?

The American Heart Association lists eight things that can lead to congestive heart failure:

• coronary artery disease which exists when the arteries that supply blood to the heart muscle are narrowed
• high blood pressure
• a previous heart attack (myocardial infarction is a technical term for heart attack) that left behind scar tissue and interferes with the heart's normal work
• heart valve disease
• a disease of the heart muscle itself known as cardiomyopathy
• congenital heart defects (congenital just means a condition present at birth)
• endocarditis (infection of the heart valves) and/or myocarditis (infection of the heart muscle)

What are some signs and symptoms of congestive heart failure?

• swelling of the legs and ankles (because the heart can circulate the blood properly and fluid pools in the legs and ankles)
• shortness of breath particularly when a person is lying down. Even though pooling of fluid is most common in the legs and ankles, it can also pool in other areas such as the lungs which causes the shortness of breath). Furthermore, heart failure affects the kidneys ability to dispose of sodium which increase the edema (swelling cause by build up in fluid in the body’s tissue)
• tiredness with any physical activity (again because circulation is poor, the body is not getting the oxygen and energy that is normally distributed through the circulatory system)

What are some treatment options?

According to the American Heart Association, typical treatment plan would consist of rest, proper diet, modification of daily physical activities and a regimen of prescriptions such as: Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme (ACE) inhibitors, digitalis, diuretics, beta blockers and vasodilators.

What are the stages of dying from congestive heart failure?

Since it’s the topic of the website, we will address the question but it is our intention for people to recognize and intervene so that they do not die from congestive heart failure.

Congestive Heart Failure can be insidious and have a slow onset. For purposes of this website, we will classify the stages as mild, moderate and severe congestive heart failure but please recognize that the underlying condition is congestive heart failure so all stages are life threatening. According to the American Heart Association, most cases of mild and moderate congestive heart failure can be treated.

• Mild Congestive Heart Failure may not be that noticeable to the patient. Reading about the symptoms of mild congestive heart failure reminds me of my wife complaining about being more tired than usually during her morning run. She recognized something was different than normal but it wasn’t enough to cause alarm. She turned out to be pregnant. It seems that mild congestive heart failure surface with similar symptoms as you may feel more tired during physical activity but may be attributed it to a number of other factors causing patients to ignore the symptoms.

• Moderate Congestive Heart Failure would be more noticeable and the fatigue during physical activity would be much more significant and you may experience heart palpitations. Moderate Congestive Heart Failure may cause significant tiredness even with normal activities. Resting may help alleviate the symptoms but the symptoms should not be ignored.

• Severe Congestive Heart Failure is a condition where a person has difficult functioning on any level. Every activity makes them tired. At this stage, even while at rest, a person may feel extremely tired. When congestive heart failure is severe, shortness of breath is more frequent and breathing can be difficult

It is important to recognize that, without intervention, congestive heart failure will become more severe over time and ultimately lead to death. The above data has been collected from the American Heart Association and Center for Disease Control. If there are any questions, please contact us: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it