What is congestive heart failure? How do you know if leg edema is from the heart or from venous reflux disease?
Congestive heart failure has been called the “new epidemic” of cardiovascular disease with 500,000 new cases diagnosed each year and a total of 3.5 million Americans affected by it at any time! As the population ages and medical technology gets better and better, heart attack survivors will increase and the residual damage to the heart will leave more people with the diagnosis of congestive heart failure. Unfortunately, the decrease in prevalence of congestive heart failure due to risk modification is not big enough to counteract the increasing population base of patients with congestive heart failure due to aging and a reduced mortality from heart related problems. The annual health care cost of congestive heart failure in the United States exceeds $ 8 billion dollars and is projected to triple to $ 24 billion by the year 2010. Dr. Karamanoukian is a heart surgeon and can tell you whether the swelling in your legs is from your heart, your kidneys, or from venous reflux disease.
