Making the Diagnosis
If you have the symptoms mentioned in the previous section, along with one of the conditions that puts you at risk, your doctor may suspect CHF. Your doctor will examine you to see if your legs are swollen or your lungs are filled with fluid.
Your doctor may also order tests to check your heart. Your doctor may send you for blood and urine tests, an electrocardiogram (ECG), or a chest X-ray, which can show the excess fluid in the lungs. An echocardiogram (an ultrasound of the heart) will help diagnose heart failure. An echocardiogram can also tell the doctor how much of the blood in your heart is actually being pumped out to the rest of the body. The proportion of blood that gets pumped out is called the ejection fraction.