What Are Signs and Symptoms of Congestive Heart Failure?

The symptoms of congestive heart failure can be very mild and subtle at early stages. As it progresses the symptoms get increasingly more severe and obvious. All of the symptoms of heart failure relate to the fact that the heart muscle cannot keep up with demands of pumping blood to the rest of the body. As a result, one of the first subtle symptoms is an overall decrease in energy, chest pains from the struggling heart and feelings of shortness of breath with minimal exertion. As the heart continues to get backed up with blood, the lungs then get backed up with fluid worsening the shortness of breath. The back-up in blood then leads to fluid build-up in the abdominal cavity and in the lower extremities. As the heart enlarges, the stretched out heat muscles is at risk of palpitations and irregular beating that can lead to other dangerous arrhythmias. While heart failure can be of gradual slow onset, there are other diseases that can lead to acute heart failure where you get rapid onset of these symptoms.