I had congestive heart failure at 51. Here's my story.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Yes, I’ve been thru a bad health patch. One that turned out worse than I or my doctors expected.

Back in August I was a bit run down and had a bout with (what everyone thought was) pneumonia. Thing was, nothing touched it. Antibiotics, steroids, inhalers, forget it. But I felt well enough to continue most of my normal activities, and even do some traveling.

In October all that started to change. I had been tired, sure, but now I was weak. I couldn’t catch my breath after walking down a hall. Bending over or coughing made me want to pass out. I started to bloat, which a doc chalked up to my steroids. Worst of all, I woke up every few minutes during the night short of breath. I could only sleep daytimes, when I was dead tired.

On 10/21 I checked into my hometown ER, asking them to test till they knew what was wrong. A few hours later I’d had an X ray and CT scan, and a hospital diagnostician was telling me it just might be congestive heart failure.

I didn’t know what the hell that was. CHF is not a heart attack. It doesn’t strike all of a sudden with upper body or chest pain. But it can put you at risk of one, and at risk of your life.

CHF is caused by the weakening of the heart muscle, and backup of blood and other fluids thru the body that would normally be pumped along. Airways or lungs may be obstructed and hamper breathing. Feet and legs swell. You are severely weak and - in my case, unknowingly - at high risk of a fatal cardiac event.

Again, all this masqueraded as pneumonia and steroid side effects. (Pneumonia can contribute to CHF, but I will never know if it was the cause of mine - it leaves no signs.) At 51yo I am a lot younger than the typical CHF patient. Type 2 diabetes and overweight were my added risk factors, but up till then, my heart had never shown doctors any worrisome signs.

5 days in the hospital got my fluids draining and me getting all the sleep I could handle (whew!). An angiogram was done and I was lucky: no blockages or need for bypass surgery. I was put on a low-sodium diet, started oral meds, and for the next 3 months will also wear a defibrillator vest 24-7, just in case.

I am home and doing well now, resuming normal activities slowly and carefully and getting used to a new lifestyle, but I am conserving my strength. I consider myself lucky as hell to be here.

I wanted to write to encourage Dopers, especially the middle-aged and older folks, to get informed about congestive heart failure, its causes and symptoms. Did you know, for instance, that the average American consumes 8,500 mg of sodium in a day? That’s 7 times the recommended amount for those over 50 or at other risk factors (like being diabetic). And it turns out our dear friend alcohol weakens the heart, too, along with its other risks.

A little knowledge about these things can go a long way in keeping us healthy. I encourage you to look into it yourselves, keep active (something I failed to do consistently), and avoid overconsumption and stress.

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(Post-edit window) A few stats: The normal heart functions at 50-70% of capacity, by a measure called ejection fraction (EF). My EF was 25% when I presented at ER. My goal over the next 3 months is to build that to a safer 35-40%. This is what the heart and diuretic meds and low-salt diet are for. They will be for life, but I may be able to ditch the defibrillator vest earlier than 90 days if I do well.

3

Yikes. Scary stuff. I’m glad you found out what it was, and got help for it, and that you’re still around. And thank you for giving us information about the condition and advice on how to stay healthy, too.

4

Wow. Thanks for posting. I can envision reducing overconsumption, but how do you eliminate stress? :confused:

5

I have CHF and have been doing the low sodium diet since I found out about the CHF in April. I am not super rigorous about it but I was eating so much salt before. I’m on two heart medications now and my last cardiologist appointment was very good.
I just turned 60, btw.

6

Glad to hear you’re on the mend. Take Care.

7

very glad you checked into the ER - and now you know. good luck with increasing your EF so you can do more.

8

This happened to our dog several years ago. Maybe you should “see how it goes.”

Just kidding. We treated it aggressively with medication and kept her healthy for quite some time. Put your meds in peanut butter to make them more appealing.

Seriously, though, watch your kidney function carefully. CHF can be a stressor toward renal problems if not managed properly. Best of luck.

9

You limit it. Step one for me was learning to say no to RO (the Doper term “recreational outrage” meaning media-fueled anger and rile-em-up topics). I no longer try to test my resolve with angry online people, who want to live rent-free in my head.

Step two will be to start walking away from obsessiveness - things that “must” be done in the “now,” or at least worried about. (And most of the time all one does is worry.)

10

I love my PB, but it is rather salty. :smiley:

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My 80 year old father has been dealing with CHF for the last few years. It has been triggered twice where he has been pumped full of fluid during surgery for prostate issues and he ends up in a battle between diuretics and kidney function. They finally found something other than Lasix that he can tolerate without sending his creatine through the roof. He ending up losing 15 lbs of fluid and is finally moving around again.

Don’t push yourself, but try to keep moving!

12

My exwife started showing symptoms in her early 50s. She went to doctors until she was sick and tired of going to doctors, and they diagnosed everything under the sun. After ten years of that, she finally said to me “You’ve got to take me to ER”. Ten feet inside the door, a triage nurse said “congestive heart failure”. Now, another ten years is past. She has no organic heart, she carries a battery that drives a mechanical implanted blood circulating machine, and she is on the list for a heart transplant, but now at age 71 she is low in the priority list.

In the FWIW department: The very first time she ever had any symptoms, was the evening after we drove under a massive array of contrails in New Mexico, which literally blocked out the sun and cause the temperature to drop by ten degrees. Continuous wheezing, and audible gurgling from her lungs.

13

Ten years? :frowning:

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My mother’s family is from Slovakia. We are Jewish, so technically not Slovak, but we were there for about 400 years, so we picked up the Slovak gene (or whatever it is) for overtasting salt-- that is, even things with just a tiny bit of salt taste REALLY salty.

There’s a joke that a Slovak can pull a potato straight out of the ground, take a bite, and say “Too salty.”

It’s one of the few good genes I got. I’m short, have a big nose, and needed braces, but I don’t need to salt my food.

Doug, I hope everything you are doing has a positive effect. Sounds just awful what you are going through.

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Don’t know if you were joking about the peanut butter, but they make “NO ADDED SALT” peanut butter - I use it (low salt diet, but not for heart). It tastes BETTER than salted peanut butter once you get used to all that peanut flavor :slight_smile:

16

Thanks for sharing, and best of luck. Also, take heed of your own username!

17

Thank you for posting. Take care and feel better.

18

Glad you’re doing okay!

I lost my mom to CHF after a bad case of viral pneumonia many years ago. She had it for years though and never changed her lifestyle. My roommate was diagnosed last year at 53 and he’s doing a lot better now on a low carb diet, losing weight. He recently realized he was sleeping full nights again whereas when he first got the diagnosis he was sleeping a few hours at a time in a recliner. He couldn’t lay down all the way because of the coughing.

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When I was in my junior year of high school, there was one week where my mom was just… sick. Short of breath, couldn’t sleep well, that sort of thing. She thought she was just under the weather. Then a few days later she was found in her office break room, dead of a heart attack. She was 51.

Back then, nobody really knew what the symptoms were.

I’m 49 now, and I’ve always felt like I’m on a bit of a timer. So now I try to eat better, and work out a lot. I still have a weakness for chocolate and sushi.

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What’s unhealthy about sushi? The sugar in the rice?