Whenever I see discussion of heart issues there’s always talk about how fluid builds up in the chest, which compresses the heart and lungs and makes it harder for them to function.
What is that fluid? Where does it come from? Is it blood? Mucus? How does it get there? I’ve never really understood why a weak heart would cause excess fluid in the chest cavity, but I would like to learn.
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There is a sac around the heart that can fill with fluid like pus due to infections, for instance. If too much fluid builds up, it impedes the ability of the heart to beat properly, and starts to apply pressure to the lungs.
When you have heart failure you are fluid overloaded (kind of everywhere, not just in your chest). Your heart is not pumping blood efficiently, so there is more blood left upstream and it builds up backwards in the pulmonary circulation. This increases the pressure in the pulmonary vasculature causing fluid to leak out of the vessels and results in pulmonary edema. Just like ankle edema that may also happen in such cases it’s mostly water from the blood.
I think the fluid you’re referring to is related with a condition called “pericardial effusion”.
Basically, our hearts are covered by a sort of sac – the “pericardial sac” – that’s filled with a fluid. This fluid is an exudate with proteins, lymphocytes and other components.
What does it do ? Well this fluid inside the sac helps with lubricating the outside of the heart so it doesn’t “scratch” itself against other organs whenever it expands when pumping blood.
Sometimes, people with heart problems tend to accumulate this fluid inside the pericardial sac. This leads to bad things such as preventing the heart from contracting and dilating and so it worsens the heart problem.
On the other hand. If this sac is getting bigger and bigger, all the surrounding organs (the lungs) start to get compressed and so it affects them too.
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