How is heart failure treated?

Heart failure is a very serious condition because if you suffer from this disease, the heart will not have enough blood to meet the needs of the body, and in severe cases it may even be life-threatening. Heart failure mainly manifests itself in three symptoms: total heart failure, right heart failure symptoms, and left heart failure. Patients should be aware of these three symptoms. At the same time, patients should also learn to cooperate with treatment in a timely manner by controlling blood pressure, reducing cholesterol intake, reducing salt and water intake, and avoiding overwork.

1. Clinical manifestations of heart failure

1. Total heart failure. As the disease progresses, both left and right heart failure may eventually lead to total heart failure, and the combined clinical manifestations of left and right heart failure will appear.

2. Symptoms of right heart failure. The patient feels fullness in the right upper abdomen, constipation, loss of appetite, nausea and vomiting, increased or less urine at night, and edema in both lower limbs which is more obvious in the afternoon. The edema disappears or decreases after a night's sleep the next morning. In severe cases, systemic edema may occur, and there may be pleural effusion and ascites.

3. Left heart failure. Left heart failure is the most common type of heart failure. Fatigue, weakness, and dyspnea are the most common and serious symptoms of left heart failure. This group of symptoms tends to gradually worsen and manifest itself. At first, one may only feel that one is not as strong as before, and may become easily fatigued and listless during general activities, or may cough, wheeze, and have palpitations when doing work that one was previously capable of doing. Later, one may also feel breathless and have palpitations when engaging in light physical activities, or walking quickly or going upstairs. Some patients may have no obvious discomfort during daytime activities, but often need to use high pillows to sleep at night, otherwise they will feel suffocated, or even suddenly wake up from a deep sleep and need to sit up for a few minutes to feel relieved, or have an unexplained dry cough that is more obvious when sleeping. Clinically, this may be easily misdiagnosed as chronic bronchitis.

2. Treatment of heart failure

1. To treat heart failure, we must first control and treat the causes of heart failure, such as controlling blood pressure, reducing cholesterol intake, etc.

2. Reduce salt and water intake to reduce water retention.

3. Avoid overwork and excessive stimulation to reduce the workload of the heart.

4. Drug treatment can reduce the burden on the heart. These drugs include diuretics, beta-inhibitors, renin-converting enzyme inhibitors, digitalis, spironolactone, etc.

5. Terminally ill patients need heart transplant surgery.