Related symptoms include feeling faint or dizzy, as if objects are moving around you. Some patients experience nausea, pain, and abdominal tenderness. Swelling may be what sends the patient to the doctor, especially in patients who do not exert themselves by exercise or other activity enough to recognize the limits on their physical abilities. And swelling in or around the lungs will be what the physician will look for. Fluid fails to be carried along and seeps from the vessels into tissues and body cavities.
Gravity pulls the fluid downward, and it collects in the feet and ankles.
When patients are confined to bed, this type of swelling from fluid accumulation may be detected in the lower back as well as in the legs, ankles, and feet. When this kind of swelling occurs in the lungs, it prevents deep inspiratory breathing, thereby causing shortness of breath. Swelling in the bowels can interfere with proper absorption. These symptoms are the broad brushstrokes of clinical heart failure, but they can also be associated with other ailments completely unrelated to the heart or its arteries. Respiratory disease or obesity, for example, can cause feelings of fatigue and shortness of breath.