The disease is also called heart failure. The condition results when the heart fails to pump adequate blood to body tissues. That is when the heart can’t pump with adequate force or can’t fill with enough blood. In response, the heart chambers stretch

Symptoms of Congestive Heart Failure

• Chest pain (angina), especially if the heart failure is secondary to a heart attack
• Increased fatigue and general body weaknesses
• Irregular heartbeats that are often rapid
• An increase in the urge to frequently urinate, especially at night
• Shortness of breath
• An increase in the blood pressure values
• Edema that mostly occurs in the legs, feet and ankles, although it may be evident in other parts of the body

Causes of Congestive Heart Failure

Coronary heart disease. This condition affects coronary arteries. The artery lumen may be blocked or narrowed, compromising oxygen supply to the heart muscle, something that reduces the heart’s functional capacity, hence congestive heart failure

Cardiomyopathy. Infections, drugs and alcohol among many other things. Genetics can also lead to hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. The cardiomyopathy can in turn result in congestive heart failure.

Faulty heart valves. The defects of the heart valves can lead to an impairment in the control of blood flow. That can result in a heart overwork, which further complicates to congestive heart disease.

1. This condition forces the heart to overwork when pumping blood. Over a given period, the cardiac muscle thickens resulting to ineffectiveness in the pumping of blood hence congestive heart failure.

Other diseases. Diseases like myocarditis can affect the heart pumping capacity resulting in heart failure. On the same line, chronic diseases like hypothyroidism, hyperthyroidism, diabetes, emphysema, amyloidosis and hemochromatosis have been associated with heart failure.

Treatment of Congestive Heart Failure

There are three approaches that are key in treating this disease condition.

1. Pharmacological Approach

The patient with heart failure can take medications, which are the mainstay of treatment of the disease. They include:

• Angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEI). An example of a drug from this class is captopril. The drugs reduce the blood pressure by causing vasodilation.
• Diuretics. The drugs in this class increase the frequency of urination resulting in the reduction of body fluids. Drugs like furosemide and spironolactone are important in treating hypertension, which may complicate the disease.
• Digitalis. The drug increases the strength of cardiac muscle contraction and slows the heart rate. That explains as to why it’s a very good drug in treating congestive heart failure.
• Beta blockers. They reduce the blood pressure of a patient in addition to slowing the heart rate. Carvedilol is a good example of drugs of this class.

2. Surgical approach.

in the treatment of congestive heart failure.

3. Lifestyle modification

Also, treating the condition without modifying lifestyle habits that could have led to the disease is futile. Individuals with congestive heart failure should eat a balanced healthy diet with less salt and free from cholesterol. Habits of smoking and drinking alcohol should cease. Similarly, patients with this disease should control their weight by doing appropriate physical exercises.