Symptoms of left heart failure

summary

Left heart failure refers to heart failure caused by left ventricular compensatory dysfunction, which is more common in clinic and characterized by pulmonary circulation congestion. Simple right heart failure is mainly seen in pulmonary heart disease and some congenital heart disease, with systemic congestion as the main manifestation. After left heart failure, pulmonary artery pressure increases, which aggravates right heart load. After a long time, right heart failure also occurs, that is, whole heart failure. Simple mitral stenosis is a special type of heart failure. It does not involve the systolic function of left ventricle, but directly leads to pulmonary hypertension due to the increase of left atrial pressure, with obvious pulmonary congestion and successive right ventricular dysfunction. Symptoms of left heart failure? Let's talk about it

Symptoms of left heart failure

Exertional dyspnea is the earliest symptom of left heart failure. It is due to the increase of cardiac blood volume, left atrial pressure and pulmonary congestion caused by exercise. The amount of exercise that causes dyspnea decreases with the aggravation of heart failure.

When the congestion of the lung reaches a certain degree, the patient can not lie on his back, because the amount of blood flow back to the heart increases and the diaphragm is lifted up when he lies on his back, so it is more difficult to breathe. High pillow lying position, half lying position and even sitting upright can make suffocation better.

The patient with paroxysmal dyspnea at night has fallen asleep and suddenly wakes up due to suffocation. He is forced to take a sitting position and breathe deeply and quickly. Severe cases may have wheezing sound, which is called "cardiogenic asthma". Most of them can relieve themselves after sitting and resting. In addition to the increase of pulmonary blood volume due to the redistribution of blood in supine sleep, the increase of vagus nerve tension at night, the contraction of small bronchus, the high level of diaphragm and the decrease of vital capacity are also the contributing factors.

matters needing attention

Rest control physical activity, avoid mental stimulation, reduce the load of the heart, is conducive to the recovery of heart function. But long term bedridden prone to venous thrombosis or even pulmonary embolism, but also reduce digestive function, muscle atrophy. Therefore, patients with heart failure should be encouraged to take active exercise. According to the severity of the disease, symptoms should be gradually increased from sitting beside the bed, such as walking.