Pneumonia Can Increase Danger To The Heart
Pneumonia is a common lung infection with more than one million people admitted to the hospital for treatment each year, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. And, research published in JAMA found that the risk of cardiovascular disease increases for up to a year following a pneumonia infection.
An acute infection like pneumonia increases the stress on the heart and can lead to a cardiac event like heart failure, heart attack or arrhythmias, said Weston Harkness, DO, a cardiology fellow at Samaritan Cardiology – Corvallis.
For a healthy person, a case of pneumonia is very unlikely to lead to a cardiac event. The danger, according to Dr. Harkness, is for people with other cardiac risk factors such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes and tobacco use.
The inflammatory response in the body during an infection can increase the risk of a cardiovascular event, but there is some evidence that pneumonia specifically can contribute to plaque breaking off the artery walls and causing a clot which can lead to a heart attack, said Dr. Harkness.
Bacteremia And Septic Shock
If bacteria caused your pneumonia, they could get into your blood, especially if you didn’t see a doctor for treatment. It’s a problem called bacteremia.
Bacteremia can lead to a serious situation known as . It’s a reaction to the infection in your blood, and it can cause your blood pressure to drop to a dangerous level.
When your blood pressure is too low, your heart may not be able to pump enough blood to your organs, and they can stop working. Get medical help right away if you notice symptoms like:
Your doctor can test your mucus or the pus in your lungs to look for infection. They may also take an X-ray or a CT scan of your lungs.
Your doctor will likely treat your lung abscesses with antibiotics. They may do a procedure that uses a needle to remove the pus.
If You’re Over 65 Be Sure To Follow The Latest Pneumonia Vaccine Guidelines
Each year, about a million people in the United States end up in the hospital with pneumonia, a serious lung infection that can be caused by an array of different viruses, bacteria, and even fungi. New research suggests that older people hospitalized with pneumonia face four times their usual risk of a having a heart attack or stroke or dying of heart disease in the month following the illness.
The risk declines over the following year, according to the report, published in the Jan. 20, 2015, Journal of the American Medical Association. Infections put added stress on your heart, forcing it to work harder. Your body’s efforts to fight the infection also trigger unhealthy changes inside your arteries, such as releasing chemicals that can make blood more likely to clot, which can lead to a heart attack or stroke.
“Serious infections like pneumonia are linked to a higher risk of heart attack as well as worsening heart failure in people with that condition,” says Dr. Scott Solomon, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. For older people, the pneumonia vaccine may help prevent these dangerous complications, but an annual flu shot is also important, he notes. The same virus that causes the flu can also cause viral pneumonia in some people and nudge others to develop bacterial pneumonia.
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Prognostic Role Of Chest Ultrasound
A high number of B-lines at the time of discharge from a hospitalization for AHF or in ambulatory patients with CHF identifies those at high risk of subsequent HF readmissions or death in observational studies .
Over the years, several studies have been conducted in order to establish the effectiveness of B-lines in the prognostic evaluation of patients with HF. Gustafsson et al., found that a high number of B-lines assessed by a five-zone method adjusted for age, systolic function, and NT-proBNP identified an increased the risk of death or hospitalization after 6-month follow-up .
What Are The Symptoms Of Heart Failure
There may be times that your symptoms are mild or you may not have any symptoms at all. This doesn’t mean you no longer have heart failure. Symptoms of heart failure can range from mild to severe, and may come and go.
In general, heart failure gets worse over time. As it worsens, you may have more or different signs or symptoms. It is important to let your doctor know if you have new symptoms or if your symptoms get worse.
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Congestive Heart Failure: Prevention Treatment And Research
Congestive heart failure is a serious condition in which the heart doesnt pump blood as efficiently as it should. Despite its name, heart failure doesnt mean that the heart has literally failed or is about to stop working. Rather, it means that the heart muscle has become less able to contract over time or has a mechanical problem that limits its ability to fill with blood. As a result, it cant keep up with the bodys demand, and blood returns to the heart faster than it can be pumped outit becomes congested, or backed up. This pumping problem means that not enough oxygen-rich blood can get to the bodys other organs.
The body tries to compensate in different ways. The heart beats faster to take less time for refilling after it contractsbut over the long run, less blood circulates, and the extra effort can cause heart palpitations. The heart also enlarges a bit to make room for the blood. The lungs fill with fluid, causing shortness of breath. The kidneys, when they dont receive enough blood, begin to retain water and sodium, which can lead to kidney failure. With or without treatment, heart failure is often and typically progressive, meaning it gradually gets worse.
More than 5 million people in the United States have congestive heart failure. Its the most common diagnosis in hospitalized patients over age 65. One in nine deaths has heart failure as a contributing cause.
How Is Congestive Heart Failure Treated
The cause of the heart failure will determine what kinds of treatment options are viable. If heart failure is caused by a valve disorder, performing heart valve surgery may improve your heart function. Most cases of heart failure, however, are caused by a damaged heart muscle although there’s no cure for this, the right balance of medications, lifestyle changes, and sometimes special devices has proven to be successful.
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Heart Failure Treatments And Covid
The key to managing heart failure is adhering to a treatment strategy that includes medications and lifestyle changes. In severe cases, implants or surgeries may be required. Some common prescription medications used to treat heart failure include:
- Angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors like captopril, lisinopril, enalapril, and ramipril
- Angiotensin receptor blockers like valsartan and losartan
- Beta-blockers like carvedilol, metoprolol succinate, and bisoprolol
- ARB + neprilysin inhibitor
- Diuretics like furosemide and torsemide
- SGLT2 inhibitor empagliflozin
Many of these medications carry a risk of side effects like dizziness, low blood pressure, shortness of breath, and difficulty breathing. These symptoms can be exacerbated by COVID-19 or make a coronavirus infection feel worse.
People with heart failure should stick to the medication regimen prescribed by their healthcare providereven if they have COVID-19. Call your practitioner before making any medication changes on your own.
Why Its Important To Know Your Ef
If you have a heart condition, it is important for you and your doctor to know your EF. Your EF can help your doctor determine the best course of treatment for you. Measuring your EF also helps your healthcare team check how well our treatment is working.
Ask your doctor how often you should have your EF checked. In general, you should have your EF measured when you are first diagnosed with a heart condition, and as needed when your condition changes.
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Data On Hospitalizations For Pneumonia
We identified patients aged at least 15 years of age, with a first-time hospitalization for pneumonia during the three data collection periods, using counties hospital discharge registries merged into a research database, as previously described . The registries contain key information on all patient discharges from non-psychiatric hospitals in the counties since 1977 . Data include patients civil registration numbers, admission and discharge dates, and up to 20 discharge diagnoses coded exclusively by physicians according to the International Classification of Diseases . The ICD-10 codes used for pneumonia hospitalizations were J12-J18, A481, and A709.
Can You Recover From Congestive Heart Failure
Although there is no cure for heart failure, its important to manage the condition with medication and lifestyle changes to prevent it from worsening. In order to improve life expectancy while living with congestive heart failure, you should know the different stages of the disease and what to do after diagnosis.
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How To Stay Safe
Hospitalization for a heart failure exacerbation could be especially tricky in the pandemic, particularly in areas where health systems are already strained. There are a number of ways you can keep your heart failure in check and avoid getting COVID-19:
- Make sure you are up to date on all of your vaccinations, including influenza and pneumonia vaccines.
- Ask your healthcare provider if you can stay in touch with them through virtual or telehealth appointments to limit your exposure.
- Discuss the necessity of certain health screenings or nonessential procedures with your practitioner.
- Make sure you keep a list of your current medications and doses with you at all times.
- Keep at least a 30-day supply of your medications on hand.
- Stay active and find ways to reduce stress while keeping social distancing recommendations in mind.
- Wear a mask.
What Is The Life Expectancy Of Pneumonia Congestive Heart Failure
Pneumonia Congestive Heart Failure Life Expectancy 1 Factors influencing prognosis of pneumonia in elderly patients For example, they share many of the same symptoms and can often be confused 2 Congestive Heart Failure Symptoms, Stages, Signs, Treatment 3 Outcome of community-acquired pneumonia with cardiac
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How Does Heart Failure Affect Quality Of Life And Lifestyle
With the right care and treatment plan, heart failure may limit your activities, but many adults still enjoy life. How well you feel depends on how well your heart muscle is working, your symptoms and how well you respond to and follow your treatment plan. This includes caring for yourself and living a healthy lifestyle .
Because heart failure is a chronic long-term illness, talk to your doctor and your family about your preferences for medical care. You can complete an advance directive or living will to let everyone involved in your care know your desires. A living will details the treatments you do or dont want to prolong your life. It is a good idea to prepare a living will while you are well in case you arent able to make these decisions at a later time.
Reviewed by a Cleveland Clinic medical professional.
References
Does Chest Congestion Go Away On Its Own
When to see a doctor
Although most common chest infections will clear up without treatment, if the infection is particularly severe or symptoms do not begin to ease within 23 weeks, it may be time to see a doctor. Other symptoms that also indicate it is time to see a doctor include: coughing up blood or bloody mucus.
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What Is Stage D Heart Failure
We propose that stage D advanced heart failure be defined as the presence of progressive and/or persistent severe signs and symptoms of heart failure despite optimized medical, surgical, and device therapy. Importantly, the progressive decline should be primarily driven by the heart failure syndrome.
Is Stage D End Stage Heart Failure
The final stage of heart failure is also known as the end stage of heart failure. Doctors classify heart failure into stages AD and classes IIV to label them in terms of severity and symptoms. According to an older 2007 study, someone with end stage heart failure typically has Stage D, NYHA Class IV heart failure.
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What Do The Numbers Mean
Ejection Fraction 55% to 70%
- Pumping Ability of the Heart: Normal.
- Level of Heart Failure/Effect on Pumping: Heart function may be normal or you may have heart failure with preserved EF .
Ejection Fraction 40% to 54%
- Pumping Ability of the Heart: Slightly below normal.
- Level of Heart Failure/Effect on Pumping: Less blood is available so less blood is ejected from the ventricles. There is a lower-than-normal amount of oxygen-rich blood available to the rest of the body. You may not have symptoms.
Ejection Fraction 35% to 39%
- Pumping Ability of the Heart: Moderately below normal.
- Level of Heart Failure/Effect on Pumping: Mild heart failure with reduced EF .
Ejection Fraction Less than 35%
- Pumping Ability of the Heart: Severely below normal.
- Level of Heart Failure/Effect on Pumping: Moderate-to-severe HF-rEF. Severe HF-rEF increases risk of life-threatening heartbeats and cardiac dyssynchrony/desynchronization .
Normal Heart. A normal left ventricular ejection fraction ranges from 55% to 70%. An LVEF of 65%, for example means that 65% of total amount of blood in the left ventricle is pumped out with each heartbeat. Your EF can go up and down, based on your heart condition and how well your treatment works.
HF-pEF. If you have HF-pEF, your EF is in the normal range because your left ventricle is still pumping properly. Your doctor will measure your EF and may check your heart valves and muscle stiffness to see how severe your heart failure is.
Stages C And D With Preserved Ef
Treatment for patients with Stage C and Stage D heart failure and reserved EF includes:
- Treatments listed in Stages A and B.
- Medications for the treatment of medical conditions that can cause heart failure or make the condition worse, such as atrial fibrillation, high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, coronary artery disease, chronic lung disease, high cholesterol and kidney disease.
- Diuretic to reduce or relieve symptoms.
YOU ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF YOUR TREATMENT PLAN!
It is up to you to take steps to improve your heart health. Take your medications as instructed, follow a low-sodium diet, stay active or become physically active, take notice of sudden changes in your weight, live a healthy lifestyle, keep your follow-up appointments, and track your symptoms. Talk to your healthcare team about questions or concerns you have about your medications, lifestyle changes or any other part of your treatment plan.
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What Is Heart Failure
Heart failure refers to the chronic, progressive condition that evolves from damaged or weakened heart muscles. The muscles of the heart are what help it to pump oxygen-rich blood throughout the body. A number of factors can lead to heart failure, including coronary artery disease, which is usually caused by the buildup of fatty deposits, or plaque, in your blood vessels . As these vessels become narrowed or blocked, the heart muscle that those vessels supply may not receive enough oxygen-rich blood. This, in turn, may cause damage to the heart muscle, which can lead to heart failure.
Your heart will try to compensate for this extra effort it has to put forth at first by growing larger, increasing muscle mass, or pumping faster. These are only temporary fixes, though. Each of these attempts to compensate for decreased pumping and circulatory capacityalso referred to as the ejection fraction and cardiac outputonly last for so long until they result in even more damage.
What Causes Congestive Heart Failure
Congestive heart failure is a common complication of heart diseases and conditions that damage the heart muscle or make it work too hard. This makes the heart weak and unable to pump blood effectively through the body. Diseases, disorders and conditions that can cause congestive heart failure include:
- Advanced age
- Atherosclerosis and coronary artery disease
- Cardiac arrhythmias
- Cardiomyopathy
- Congenital heart diseases
- Diabetes
- Heart attack, also called myocardial infarction
- Myocarditis
- Severe anemia
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What Is Ejection Fraction
Ejection fraction refers to how well your left ventricle pumps blood with each heart beat. Most times, EF refers to the amount of blood being pumped out of the left ventricle each time it contracts. The left ventricle is the heart’s main pumping chamber.
Your EF is expressed as a percentage. An EF that is below normal can be a sign of heart failure. If you have heart failure and a lower-than-normal EF , your EF helps your doctor know how severe your condition is.
Data On Potential Confounding Factors
We obtained data on comorbidity and other covariates from the hospital and prescription databases. For each study subject, we collected data on different major disease categories as included in the Charlson comorbidity index , based on the complete hospital discharge history before the pneumonia hospitalization and, for diabetes, also based on data on prescriptions for insulin/antidiabetic drugs. We defined three comorbidity levels as low , medium , and high . We also collected hospital discharge data on previous alcoholism-related disorders not included in the Charlson index. From the prescription databases, we furthermore retrieved data on prescriptions for immunosuppressive drugs, including corticosteroids prescribed within one year, and systemic antibiotics prescribed within 6 months prior to the hospitalization with pneumonia.
The prevalence of diabetes is very high among heart failure patients , while hyperglycemia and diabetes have been associated with increased mortality from pneumonia. We therefore conducted a separate interaction analysis by examining pneumonia mortality among patients with heart failure but not diabetes, patients with diabetes but not heart failure, and patients with joint exposure of heart failure and diabetes.
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