can any one tell me about congestive heart failure, the causes and the symptoms?
The simplest definition of congestive heart failure is “weak heart.” A person with CHF has a heart that’s not able to pump blood efficiently, which makes it heard for organs and extremities to get the blood they need. It’s called “congestive” heart failure because in a healthy heart, blood flows into the heart as other blood flows out in an approximately equal volume, but in a heart suffering from CHF, the blood flow backs up. Think of traffic congestion. Yes, high blood pressure can certainly be a factor, as can hardening of the arteries, the physical damage left over after a heart attack, defects in the heart valves… The reason high blood pressure can contribute is that high blood pressure makes your heart work harder, and eventually the heart muscle thickens as a result of the increased work load…and a thicker heart is a stiffer heart. And a stiffer heart doesn’t pump blood as efficiently as one that’s still supple. As far as symptoms, swollen tissues (particularly swollen feet,
