CHF poll

[Lisa Salberg]

Have you ever experienced Congestive Heart Failure?

[Reenie]

Re: CHF poll

My husband hasn't ever experienced CHF.

[Midge Rollins]

Re: CHF poll

Yes, I have it most of the time now.

[shirleymahoney]

Re: CHF poll

I take spironlactone for it daily now in fact twice a day up to 50mg a day and i still have that tickle in my throat from time to time, and the doctor also upped my fluid pills to twice a day the fluid just doesn't want to go away
Shirley

[sueb]

Re: CHF poll

Shirley--Please tell me about the tickle in your throat related to heart failure. I swear that since getting my meds just right for my HCM, my chronic cough has improved. It doesn't make sense to anyone I've talked to and it could just be coincidence--but I wonder.

Sue

[shirleymahoney]

Re: CHF poll

Well the tickle is not there all the time now but a month ago i started coughing really bad again and the doctor upped my CHF meds, I've had this disease for years, but was just diagnosed with it this past Febuary, i have been complaining to doctors for years about being short winded, fatigue all the time, chest pain, i've even blacked out in the past, a couple of times, the doctors told me it was asthma, but i couldn't take the meds for it they made me sick, now the cardio dr. is telling me it wasn't asthma after all, he says that's why the meds made me sick, and he said i was pretty far into the disease when they found it, so i'm pretty sure it's CHF

shirley

[Linda]

Re: CHF poll

There's a pretty good chance that tickle is the early dry cough that often signals early CHF. Just a little bit of early congestion at the start of CHF will cause that sensation and the need to cough. Linda

[sueb]

Re: CHF poll

Interesting. I have been diagnosed with mild COPD and mild asthma but it seemed mainly as a way to put a name to my chronic cough. Bronchial dialator meds, which they actually use as a diagnostic tool for asthma, (if they help, it is asthma) didn't help, but I got the asthma label anyway.

My heart condition and my chronic cough certainly developed in a similar time frame. And when I cough, I feel as if I'll faint--the same feeling I got with exhertion before the right meds, so the cough was really a problem. Blacking out and noisily distruptive at the same time! Yet I don't think I have CHF, just HCM. As Lisa says, we're all different. If I had my choice, I'd be different in some other way---like slender or athletic. Wouldn't that be fun.

Sue

[cynthiaG]

Re: CHF poll

last November I had a really bad upper respiratory infection....it resulted in CHF symptoms...doctors never said it acted up on its own or was the result of excess fluid from the uri ...haven't taken furosedmide since last April

[Laoshur]

Re: CHF poll

Hi, all!

I have had a mild case of pneumonia the past few days and could not seem to get rid of fluid (which I could hear in my lungs and see in feet, legs, hands and face) by taking a little HCTZ, as I have been doing when I had excessive swelling in previous weeks. I finally went to a western doctor (Australian actually) this morning and he says that the symptoms I have been having are CHF, but that he thinks I am doing a reasonably good job of balancing my need to avoid too much HCTZ with my need to get rid of the fluid. Cynthia, he also said that the pneumonia could, and probably did, cause me to go further into "fluid overload" than in the past. He said that CHF usually has a trigger and a lung infection is a common one. So that probably explains your situation as well.

On another note, I regret to say that going to a western doc in Beijing is still really not a good option as I spent 1/4 of my month's salary to go this morning to a very nice GP with no tests other than oxygen saturation and the usual BP, pulse, and listening to heart, lungs, and arteries screens.

On a good note, I think I am much better today than the past couple of days, although I am tired of coughing.

Rhoda

[mjesaitis]

Re: CHF poll

I have it most, if not all of the time too.

Matt