What happens when you have congestive heart failure and kidney failure

What Problems Can Heart Failure Cause?

When you have heart failure, your heart may not be strong enough to pump out as much blood as your body needs. As it tries to move more blood, your heart gets larger. It also pumps faster, and your blood vessels narrow to get more blood out to your body.

As your heart works harder, it may become weaker. Your body gets less oxygen, and you might notice symptoms like shortness of breath, swelling in your legs, and fluid buildup.

Your body tries to keep the blood it has to supply your heart and brain. This leaves less for organs like your kidneys and liver. A lack of enough blood can damage these organs.

You can't cure heart failure, but you can manage it by following your treatment plan. Medicines, diet, exercise, and surgery are just some of the treatments your doctor might suggest to prevent these problems.

Abnormal Heart Rhythm

In a normal heart, the upper chambers (called the atria) and lower chambers (the ventricles) squeeze and relax in turn to move blood through your body. If your ticker is weak, these chambers might not squeeze at the right time. Your heart might beat too slowly, too quickly, or in an irregular pattern. When the rhythm is off, your heart can't pump enough blood out to your body.

Atrial fibrillation (AFib) is one type of abnormal heart rhythm that heart failure can cause. It causes your heart to quiver and skip instead of beating.

An irregular heartbeat can cause your blood to pool, which might lead to clots. A clot can travel to your brain. If it blocks a blood vessel there, you could have a stroke.

Heart Valve Problems

Your heart has four valves that open and close to keep blood flowing in and out of your heart. As the damage gets worse and your heart has to work harder to pump out blood, it gets bigger. The change in size can damage the valves.

Kidney Damage or Failure

Your kidneys filter waste and extra fluid out of your blood. Just like your other organs, they need a steady supply of blood to work like they should.

Without the amount of blood they need, they won’t be able to remove enough waste from your blood. This can lead to kidney failure. It's treated with dialysis or a kidney transplant.

Kidney disease can also make your heart failure worse. Damaged kidneys can't remove as much water from your blood as healthy ones. You'll start to hold onto fluid, which boosts your blood pressure. High blood pressure makes your heart work even harder.

Anemia

This is a lack of the red blood cells that move oxygen to your body's tissues. If you have anemia, your body may not get enough oxygen. Your kidneys make a protein called erythropoietin (EPO), which helps your body make new red blood cells. Kidney damage from heart failure prevents your body from making enough EPO.

Liver Damage

Your liver breaks down toxins so your body can remove them. It also stores bile, a fluid used to digest food.

Heart failure can rob your liver of the blood it needs to work. The fluid buildup that comes with it puts extra pressure on the portal vein, which brings blood to your liver. This can scar the organ to the point where it doesn't work as well as it should.

Lung Problems

A damaged heart can't pump blood as effectively from your lungs out to your body. Blood backs up, raising pressure in the veins inside your lungs. This pushes fluid into your air sacs. As liquid builds up, it gets harder to breathe. This is called pulmonary edema.

Extreme Weight Loss and Muscle Loss

Heart failure can affect muscle and fat metabolism. In the late stages, you might lose a lot of weight and muscle mass. Your muscles can get smaller and weaker.

How to Prevent Complications

Heart failure may get worse over time if you don't treat it. Severe heart failure can be life threatening.

Treatments like weight loss, a healthy diet, exercise, and medicines can protect your heart and keep you healthy. Follow your doctor's advice and stick with your treatment plan. The better you take care of your heart, the less likely you are to have other problems.

  • July 16, 2019

What happens when you have congestive heart failure and kidney failure

DEAR MAYO CLINIC: My 78-year-old mother had a heart attack three weeks ago. She was feeling better for a bit, but became ill again and was told she has an acute kidney injury. Are the two conditions somehow related? Is she at higher risk for more kidney and heart problems after this?

ANSWER: Heart attack can trigger acute kidney injury, also sometimes called kidney attack. That is because the heart and kidneys are inter-related, and disease in one can raise the risk for illness in the other. Once a person develops heart disease or kidney disease, the chances of having future heart and kidney problems are higher than in people without a history of heart or kidney issues. The good news is that there are preventive measures that can be taken to keep those problems from getting worse.

Diseases in the kidneys can affect the heart. It is common for people with chronic kidney disease or end-stage kidney disease to develop heart disease, including heart attack or heart failure. The opposite also is true. Patients who have heart failure or who suffer a heart attack can develop kidney problems — either acute kidney injury or chronic kidney disease. When a person develops both heart and kidney problems, the condition sometimes is referred to as cardiorenal syndrome.

In the case of a heart attack, a number of factors can contribute to a subsequent decline in kidney function. The stress of a heart attack can result in hormonal changes within the body, and that can have a negative effect on how well the kidneys work. Changes in heart function may lead to kidney damage by decreasing the blood supply to the kidneys. Medications given after a heart attack — including the contrast dye used in imaging exams, such as angiography and CT scans — also can affect kidney function.

But it is important to note that the presence of existing kidney disease risk factors before a heart attack, along with the severity of a heart attack, make a significant difference in the chances of developing kidney damage after a heart attack or recovery of kidney function after the damage. For example, if a person already has chronic kidney disease, diabetes, high blood pressure or other kidney-related issues, and then that individual suffers a heart attack or acute heart failure, the risk of acute damage to the kidney after the heart attack is substantially higher and a chance of kidney recovery is lower than it would be for someone without any kidney disease who has a mild heart attack.

Research has shown that people who experience kidney damage after a heart attack have significantly worse outcomes than people who do not have kidney damage. That includes higher chances of developing chronic kidney disease; progression of existing chronic kidney disease to a point that requires dialysis; and an increased risk of dying within one year of the heart attack.

Although that sounds daunting, there are steps that can be taken to lower those risks. First, there should be a careful assessment of the extent of the kidney damage after a heart attack. In some cases, kidneys may recover and resume normal functioning within a day or two of the injury. If that is the case, and the patient does not have any other kidney problems, then regular follow-up with a primary care provider to monitor kidney function may be all that is necessary.

If the kidney damage is more severe and lasts longer before it recovers or if a patient has other existing kidney issues, then follow-up should include working with a kidney specialist to ensure proper care, monitoring, medication adjustments and patient education. — Dr. Kianoush Kashani, Nephrology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota

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Tags: Acute Kidney Injury, cardiorenal syndrome, Cardiovascular, chronic kidney disease, daily, Dr. Kianoush Kashani, end-stage kidney disease, end-stage renal disease, Featured News, Health & Wellness, heart attack, kidney attack, Mayo Clinic Q & A, Mayo Clinic Q&A

How long can you live with kidney failure and heart failure?

Main results: CHF patients progressing to dialysis- dependent renal failure had a grave prognosis: median survival time was 95 days, mean survival 444 days. None of the known factors except age was associated with a worse outcome in CHF patients.

What happens with kidney failure and heart failure?

When the kidneys don't work well, more stress is put on the heart. When someone has CKD, their heart needs to pump harder to get blood to the kidneys. This can lead to heart disease, the leading cause of death in the United States. Change in blood pressure is also a CKD complication that can lead to heart disease.

Does dialysis help congestive heart failure?

In patients with severe congestive heart failure (CHF) and excessive fluid retention, peritoneal dialysis (PD) may be one way of treating them to prevent further fluid retention.

What are the symptoms of heart and kidney failure?

Here are 5 clues that your kidney or heart may be in trouble:.
Puffy eyes. If your eyes are consistently swollen, especially in the morning, take note. ... .
High blood pressure. ... .
Swelling around your extremities. ... .
Protein or blood in the urine. ... .
High cholesterol..