What are the best ways to fight congestive heart failure?

To better understand this condition, it’s best to take a closer look at how it affects the body.

Congestive heart failure, more commonly known as simply heart failure, is a condition wherein the heart is unable to pump blood efficiently throughout the body.

Because of this, the heart tries to compensate by pumping faster, but this only makes things worse as time goes on. This is where congestive heart failure treatment comes into play, since it helps the body better manage this condition and prevent it from getting worse.

It’s important to note that: not all conditions that lead to heart failure can be reversed. However, congestive heart failure treatment can help maintain a person’s quality of life and prevent further damage to the heart.

What Are The Best Ways to Fight Congestive Heart Failure?

Congestive heart failure treatment is not limited to just medication. Lifestyle changes also play a big role when it comes to treating heart failure.

Here are some types of treatment available for people who have experienced congestive heart failure:

Stay active

One of the best ways to fight congestive heart failure is to keep moving.

Physical activity is a great form of congestive heart failure treatment. Engaging in exercise for at least 30 minutes each day helps strengthen the heart, and keeps the body strong and healthy.

It would be a good idea to talk to your doctor about it in order to know which types of exercise are best for your condition. Be sure to not overexert yourself, since too much exercise can strain your heart even further.

Eat healthy

The food that you eat contributes greatly to your overall health. In order to slow down heart failure, it would be a good idea to start eating healthy and eat more foods that are heart healthy.

Fruits, vegetables, fish, nuts, legumes, and low-fat dairy products are great sources of nutrients that help keep your heart healthy. Try to eat more of these foods and avoid meat, fatty or fried foods, and heavily processed foods, and sodium.

Lose weight

Along with staying active and eating healthy, weight management is one of the best ways to fight congestive heart failure. This is especially true if you are obese or overweight.

Being obese or overweight can cause extra strain on your heart, since the added fat in the body causes the heart to work extra hard, and belly fat in particular increases the risk of heart disease.

This is why a big part of congestive heart failure treatment is reaching your target weight and maintaining that weight in order to lower the risk of future heart problems.

Manage your cholesterol levels

High levels of cholesterol in your blood can greatly increase your risk of heart disease since it can stick to the walls of a person’s blood vessels, and block the flow of blood. For someone with an already weakened heart, this can be very dangerous.

Monitoring and managing your cholesterol levels is important when it comes to congestive heart failure treatment. This would give you an idea if your cholesterol levels are in the normal range, and if your regimen for managing cholesterol is working.

Keep your blood pressure in check

Along with lowering your cholesterol levels, it would also be a good idea to lower your blood pressure as a part of congestive heart failure treatment.

Having high blood pressure or hypertension puts a strain on the heart, and also increases the risk of plaque buildup or atherosclerosis, as well as other heart problems.

Be sure to monitor your blood pressure, and take preventive measures if it is too high or beyond the healthy range of 120/80.

Be sure to take your medication

Your doctor will be prescribing you different types of medication to help mitigate the impact of congestive heart failure.

These include the following types of medication:

• Diuretics which help prevent fluid retention
• Vasodilators are medicines that expand your blood vessels, improving your blood flow
• Anti-platelets such as aspirin help thin your blood and prevent blood clots
• Beta-blockers are given to help slow down the heart rate and lets your heart pump blood more efficiently

Your doctor might also prescribe other types of medication to help with your congestive heart failure treatment.

It is important to take these medicines on schedule, and with the right dosage since failure to do so might cause even more health problems later on.

Be on top of your condition

If you have already suffered from congestive heart failure, it is a good idea to be mindful of any strange symptoms that you might be experiencing.

Do not hesitate to tell your doctor about something if you feel that it might be related to your condition. Being mindful about your body can help prevent future problems and head off any potential complications that might result from heart failure.

Get regular checkups

Regular checkups are very important when it comes to congestive heart failure treatment. Checkups let your physician know about your current state of health and if you are on the right track to staying healthy.

Your doctor can give you advice on how to take better care of your body as well as prescribe medication if necessary. This would help you get a higher quality of life and enable you to live a normal, healthy life even with heart failure.

Avoid getting too stressed

Stress can have a negative impact on your overall health. Too much stress can put a strain on your body, and can even cause life-threatening conditions.

This is why it would be great if you can take the time to relax, meditate, and de-stress. Any of these activities can improve not just your physical well-being but also your emotional well-being, and helps prevent anxiety.

Surgery can be an option

Lastly, if the heart failure has progressed to a point that the heart can no longer pump blood, surgery can be done as a last resort.

Heart failure surgery is a major operation, and recovering from heart surgery can be very difficult. So it would be best to take steps to avoid getting to the point that you need surgery to fix your heart.

However, you need to be open to the idea, and prepared to undergo heart surgery in case your doctor deems it necessary.

Learn more about congestive heart failure, here.