Can You Have Heart Failure and Not Know It

The earliest symptoms of eye failure are ofttimes very subtle, but information technology'southward dangerous to ignore them.

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It'due south an unfortunate truth that your body slows downwards in your sixth and seventh decades. Climbing a flight of stairs that you once took two at a time can now experience equally daunting equally scaling Mount Everest. While some degree of vitality loss can be attributed to natural crumbling, fatigue and breathlessness may as well exist signals that your heart is not performance too as it should. "In that location is a full general trend for people to ignore heart failure symptoms and attribute them to only getting older. Therefore, it was very important for us to create an easy way to identify those symptoms," says Dr. Mandeep R. Mehra, medical manager of the Heart and Vascular Middle at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women'south Hospital.

FACES of heart failure

Heart failure occurs when something amercement the middle muscle or reduces the centre's ability to pump effectively. Most often, the damage stems from coronary artery illness or eye attack. Only faulty heart valves, longstanding high blood pressure, or genetic disease may also be to blame. No matter what the cause, the declining center tin can no longer pump well enough to continue up with the body'south demand for oxygen-rich claret.

To help both doctors and patients quickly spot a possible combination of middle failure symptoms, the Eye Failure Club of America (www.HFSA.org) developed a handy tool that goes past the acronym FACES.

F = Fatigue.When the heart tin't pump plenty oxygen-rich blood to encounter the trunk's energy needs, a general feeling of tiredness or fatigue sets in.

A = Activity limitation.People with heart failure are often unable to do their normal activities considering they become easily tired and short of breath.

C = Congestion.Fluid buildup in the lungs can issue in cough, wheezing, and animate difficulty.

E = Edema or talocrural joint swelling.When the centre doesn't have plenty pumping power to force used blood support from the lower extremities, fluid can collect in the ankles, legs, thighs, and belly. Excess fluid can also cause rapid weight gain.

S = Shortness of breath.Fluid in the lungs makes it more difficult for carbon dioxide in used blood to be exchanged for fresh oxygen. It may also be harder to breathe when lying down because gravity allows fluid from beneath the lungs to travel up the torso.

Past themselves, these v warning signs do not confirm a diagnosis of heart failure, but they exercise convey a sense of urgency to seek medical advice, says Dr. Mehra.

Further testing

In improver to the concrete examination, doctors have two other important tools to spot the presence of heart failure. The first is an echocardiogram (often called an echo), which is a simple, noninvasive test that uses ultrasound to create images of your heart while it beats. If the echo shows a lower-than-normal percentage of claret leaving the eye when the left ventricle contracts, there is a strong possibility of heart muscle impairment. Other findings that bespeak to eye failure include abnormal thickening and ballooning of the heart wall and malfunctioning heart valves.

The adjacent step in identifying early on-onset heart failure is to look for biomarkers in the blood, such equally B-type natriuretic peptide, which is released when the heart is nether stress. "I call these compounds 'tears from the middle' considering they evidence that the eye is crying for assistance," says Dr. Mehra. Once the initial diagnosis is confirmed, further testing may be needed to effigy out what's causing the eye's dysfunction and decide the best treatment approach.

Drugs to avoid when you have heart failure

People with middle failure often have multiple medications. Still, several normally used prescription drugs, over-the-counter medicines, and supplements can interact dangerously to intensify heart failure symptoms. To be on the safe side, make sure all of your medical providers have a complete listing of all the medicines you take. Particular compounds to sentinel out for include these:

• Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs).This class of widely used painkillers, which includes ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin), can worsen eye failure symptoms past causing the trunk to retain sodium and fluid.
• Heartburn medicines and common cold remedies.These over-the-counter aids oft contain high amounts of sodium, which can trigger fluid overload.
• Herbal remedies.Many and so-called natural supplements contain substances such as ephedra, St. John's wort, ginseng, hawthorn, blackness cohosh, and green tea. All can react badly with several common middle medications.

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Source: https://www.health.harvard.edu/heart-health/5-warning-signs-of-early-heart-failure