Water retention and difficulty breathing are signs of heart failure in
this case. The water retention causes the low sodium and the water gets
in the lungs so problems in breathing.
There are also blood tests that can follow or monitor that via a BNP
test. It matches the severity of CHF. You would have to ask your doctor
about lasix and it's use.

My mother had several years in a nursing home where her docs had to
fiddle with the lasix dose to address CHF, hypertension and declining
kidney function.  After one bout/adjustment... which reduced her to
using a walker, I got her docs to approve supplementing with CoQ10
and a fat soluable form of thiamine.  After a couple weeks she began
to not bother with the walker.  I took this as a sign that she had
attained improved ejection fraction as several studies suggest.

The notion is that improving heart function (treating the problem)
improves the fluid accumulation symptom.  I wasn't local so I can't
tell you if or how much the supplementation handled the fluid problem.

Improved left ventricular function after thiamine supplementation in
patients with congestive heart failure receiving long-term furosemide
therapy.

PURPOSE: We have previously found thiamine (vitamin B1) deficiency in
patients with congestive heart failure (CHF) who had received long-term
furosemide therapy. In the present study, we assessed the effect of
thiamine repletion on thiamine status, functional capacity, and left
ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) in patients with moderate to
severe CHF who had received furosemide in doses of 80 mg/d or more for
at least 3 months. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Thirty patients were
randomized to 1 week of double-blind inpatient therapy with either i.v.
thiamine 200 mg/d or placebo (n = 15 each). All previous drugs were
continued. Following discharge, all 30 patients received oral thiamine
200 mg/d as outpatients for 6 weeks. Thiamine status was determined by
the erythrocyte thiamine-pyrophosphate effect (TPPE). LVEF was
determined by echocardiography. RESULTS: TPPE, diuresis, and LVEF were
unchanged with i.v. placebo. After i.v. thiamine, TPPE decreased (11.7%
+/- 6.5% to 5.4% +/- 3.2%; P < 0.01). LVEF increased (0.28 +/- 0.11 to
0.32 +/- 0.09; P < 0.05), as did diuresis (1,731 +/- 800 mL/d to 2,389
+/- 752 mL/d; P < 0.02), and sodium excretion (84 +/- 52 mEq/d to 116
+/- 83 mEq/d, P < 0.05). In the 27 patients completing the full 7-week
intervention, LVEF rose by 22% (0.27 +/- 0.10 to 0.33 +/- 0.11, P <
0.01). CONCLUSIONS: Thiamine repletion can improve left ventricular
function and biochemical evidence of thiamine deficiency in some
patients with moderate-to-severe CHF who are receiving longterm
furosemide therapy.

PMID: 7733128

(this used ordinary water soluable thiamin.  there are several studies
which show the superior availability of the fat soluable forms like
benfotiamine which I chose to provide more vitamin per dose.
benfotiamine has now become quite reasonable )

Coenzyme Q10 and exercise training in chronic heart failure.

AIMS: There is evidence that plasma coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) levels
decrease in patients with advanced chronic heart failure (CHF).
However, it is not known whether oral CoQ10 supplementation may improve
cardiocirculatory efficiency and endothelial function in patients with
CHF. METHODS AND RESULTS: We studied 23 patients in NYHA class II and
III (20 men, three women, mean age 59 +/- 9 years) with stable CHF
secondary to ischaemic heart disease [ejection fraction 37 +/- 7%],
using a double-blind, placebo-controlled cross-over design. Patients
were assigned to each of the following treatments: oral CoQ10 (100 mg
tid), CoQ10 plus supervised exercise training (ET) (60% of peak VO2,
five times a week), placebo, and placebo plus ET. Each phase lasted 4
weeks. Both peak VO2 and endothelium-dependent dilation of the brachial
artery (EDDBA) improved significantly after CoQ10 and after ET as
compared with placebo. CoQ10 main effect was: peak VO2+9%, EDDBA +38%,
systolic wall thickening score index (SWTI) - 12%; ET produced
comparable effects. CoQ10 supplementation resulted in a four-fold
increase in plasma CoQ10 level, whereas the combination with ET further
increased it. No side effects were reported with CoQ10. CONCLUSIONS:
Oral CoQ10 improves functional capacity, endothelial function, and LV
contractility in CHF without any side effects. The combination of CoQ10
and ET resulted in higher plasma CoQ10 levels and more pronounced
effects on all the abovementioned parameters. However, significant
synergistic effect of CoQ10 with ET was observed only for peak SWTI
suggesting that ET amplifies the already described effect of CoQ10 on
contractility of dysfunctional myocardium.

PMID: 16882678