Sometimes patients with congestive heart failure don’t even know they have this disease, it can be a slow onset that a patient just doesn’t notice. As the disease continues, the patient can suffer from dyspne, which gets worse over time, the patient will need to consult with their doctor and seek some type of treatment.
Coronary artery disease which is often a secondary disease can damage the heart tissues or can destroy or make them nonfunctional. Often the heart is starved of oxygen, which stops it functioning correctly. This is caused by the blood not been able to be pump around the body properly, instead, the blood pools, resulting in fluids being retained rather than excreted properly. The death of these cells is critical because, like brain cells, once the cells of the heart die the body is unable to reproduce them and restore full function to the heart. Congestive heart failure carries with it a high mortality rate, with over fifty percent of its victims dying within five years of being diagnosed. A more favorable prognosis can be provided by doctors as researchers are able to use modern advancements in medicine to make the patient more comfortable.
The first symptom of heart disease is chest pain and difficulty in breathing, this is when many patients discover they have heart failure, usually when they are taken to the emergency department of the local hospital. Once the patient arrives at the hospital they will be treated by giving them supplemental oxygen and begin at costs of medical treatment that will help them when they leave.
There are many methods to combat the damage done by congestive heart failure, these methods have been brought forth by modern medical science. A diabetic to stimulate the renal system which calls for it out of circulation will normally be given once oxygen is returned to an acceptable level. The renal system will normally remove potassium along with the excess fluid, which carries its own hazards, to combat this the patient will be given a potassium supplement.
Your body produces Angiotensin II and aggravates congestive heart failure, so a great deal of attention has been focused on this problem. Angiotensin II which is naturally produced in the body causes the blood pressure to be raised, this has a side effect of making the heart pump much harder to circulate blood. To prevent the body from making angiotensin II an its inhibitor is sometimes given, if the patient doesn’t respond to this drug then a receptor blocker can be prescribed. Many patients with heart problems are given nitroglycerin for this reason.
Along with medicine, research into the field of congestive heart failure is ongoing. The speculated use of stem cells, particularly embryonic stem cells, has opened a whole field of debate for possible treatment of heart failure. Patients with congestive heart failure were given some of their own stem cells in the heart via injection, and all reacted favorably. There is much debate on how stem cells help fight against heart disease, they are not sure if they help the body grew a new vessels, or simply help the body’s natural healing mechanism. Have scientists finally found a way to restore heart function in patients? What ever the case may be stem cells are giving the hearts and other organs the opportunity to heal themselves.
Modern science is providing a whole new world of treatment options to patients with congestive heart failure, and researchers are making new discoveries all the time. It is the hope of all of those in the medical field that one day heart failure will be another disease medicine has the answer to.
