Acute heart failure typical symptoms

Written by Wang Li Bing
Intensive Care Medicine Department
Updated on September 25, 2024
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The typical symptoms of acute heart failure include sudden severe difficulty breathing, increased respiratory rate, and patients generally presenting a forced sitting position, with pale, grayish complexion and cyanotic lips. They often have profuse sweating, restlessness, frequent coughing, and coughing up pink frothy sputum. The condition can be critical, leading to consciousness disturbances due to lack of oxygen. Once acute heart failure occurs, active treatment is essential. The most common clinical approaches include strengthening the heart, diuresis, and vasodilation for symptomatic active management.

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Written by Wang Li Bing
Intensive Care Medicine Department
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Common causes of heart failure

Heart failure is a syndrome that occurs when various structural or functional cardiac diseases impair ventricular filling or ejection function. Once heart failure occurs, medical treatment should be sought promptly. Common causes of heart failure mainly include the following points. The first category is primary myocardial damage, which mainly includes coronary heart disease, myocardial infarction, myocarditis, cardiomyopathy, and diabetic cardiomyopathy, among others. The second major category is cardiac load, such as excessive pressure load, commonly seen in hypertension, aortic valve stenosis, pulmonary hypertension, etc.; and excessive volume load, mainly found in cardiac valve insufficiency and congenital heart disease, among others.

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Written by Xie Zhi Hong
Cardiology
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Can heart failure cause suffocation?

Heart failure is caused by various reasons leading to the heart's blood supply being relatively or absolutely insufficient, causing a series of pathological and physiological disorders in patients. Patients often manifest symptoms like difficulty breathing, tightness in breath, and even a feeling of suffocation. However, generally, the symptoms caused by heart failure are not these. This is because suffocation occurs due to airway narrowing or the narrow space around the patient, leading to insufficient oxygen intake, causing a series of syndromes. Therefore, although people with heart failure feel suffocated, they are not actually suffocating; it is just a manifestation of inadequate circulatory supply.

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Written by Wei Shi Liang
Intensive Care Unit
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Causes of acute heart failure include

Most patients with acute heart failure have a history of heart disease, and the common causes mainly include: 1. Acute myocardial necrosis or damage, such as acute coronary syndrome, peripartum cardiomyopathy, and myocardial damage caused by drugs or toxins, including sepsis-induced myocardial damage. 2. Acute exacerbation of chronic heart failure due to infection or other stressful factors. 3. Acute hemodynamic changes, mainly including conditions like cardiac tamponade, hypertensive crisis, aortic dissection, and acute valvular regurgitation, all of which can lead to acute heart failure.

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Written by Wang Li Bing
Intensive Care Medicine Department
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Which department should I go to for heart failure?

Heart failure primarily includes left heart failure, right heart failure, and total heart failure. Patients should visit the cardiology outpatient clinic. Left heart failure mainly manifests as pulmonary congestion, which can cause varying degrees of breathing difficulty, coughing, expectoration of pink frothy sputum, palpitations, and fatigue. Right heart failure primarily appears as liver congestion and other symptoms related to the digestive system, such as nausea, vomiting, and gastrointestinal discomfort. Total heart failure includes symptoms of both left heart failure and right heart failure, and medical attention should be sought promptly after the onset of heart failure.

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Written by Wang Li Bing
Intensive Care Medicine Department
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Is the heart rate fast or slow in heart failure?

Heart failure is also relatively common in clinical practice, primarily due to dysfunction in the heart's contractile or relaxation capabilities. This leads to ineffective expulsion of venous blood returning to the heart, resulting in venous congestion and a series of symptoms. Patients typically experience varying degrees of breathing difficulty, coughing, expectoration, coughing up pink frothy sputum, as well as gastrointestinal symptoms. Following the onset of heart failure, a patient's heart rate generally increases as a compensatory response to promote increased cardiac output. If a patient enters the terminal stage of heart failure, a decrease in heart rate may occur, and can even lead to death.