When your heart starts to fail, the rest of your body does not get enough blood and oxygen. Everyday tasks like walking, climbing stairs or carrying groceries can become a struggle. But there is help and hope at UC Davis Health Heart and Vascular Center. Our heart failure specialists offer treatments that help you enjoy a better quality of life.

Heart failure symptoms

Heart failure is a lifelong condition that worsens over time. It is important to detect signs of the disease early. The sooner you receive an accurate diagnosis, the sooner you can start treatments to protect your heart.

Talk to your doctor if you experience one or more of these heart failure symptoms:

  • Shortness of breath while walking or doing other activities, or while at rest
  • Persistent coughing or wheezing
  • Swelling in the feet, ankles, legs or abdomen
  • Chronic fatigue
  • Lack of appetite or nausea
  • Confusion or impaired thinking
  • Racing heartbeat

Why choose UC Davis for heart failure care

We are known throughout Northern California for our heart failure expertise. In fact, U.S. News & World Report rates our program as high performing. This recognition reflects our dedication to excellent patient outcomes and experience.

In our Comprehensive Heart Failure Program, we treat all forms of congestive heart failure. Depending on your unique situation, we find the best approach to support your weakening heart. We offer:

  • Treatments for all stages of heart failure: From medications for early-stage heart failure to mechanical heart pumps and transplants for advanced stage, we offer the latest heart failure treatments. Our team is also highly involved in novel therapies offered through cardiovascular clinical trials. You may be able to try new treatments, devices or procedures still in development.
  • Dedicated clinics: We make it easy for you to access the medical services you need. In our , you undergo tests and meet with heart failure specialists on the same day. If you need a heart transplant or mechanical heart pump, you would also meet with a cardiac surgeon. Our clinic gives you access to the experts you need, when you need them.
  • A focus on your health: We don’t just treat your heart problem. We offer heart health programs like Prevention Forward to help you make healthy lifestyle changes to prevent heart failure. We also have the region’s most experienced Cardiac Rehab Program for people recovering from heart attacks or heart procedures.
  • Team approach: Our heart and vascular specialists work together to tailor a care plan just for you. Your team includes nurses who specialize in heart failure care. These nurses are available to answer your questions or assist with upcoming appointments or tests.
  • Convenience: With our CardioMEMS™ home monitoring program, we can detect changes to your blood pressure, heart rate or weight. This allows our team to guide optimization of your therapies or early identify changes that signal a problem. Your care team can then quickly adjust treatment so you can remain at home and avoid hospitalization. With our clinical telehealth services, you can have an online, face-to-face video visit with your doctor wherever you are located.

Our specialized heart disease programs

People with certain heart conditions have a higher risk of heart failure. Our specialized programs help you manage these conditions while protecting your heart. We help people affected by:

This condition happens when abnormal protein deposits build up on tissues and organs, including the heart. Specialized cardiac imaging including cardiac MRI and pyrophosphate (PYP) scans are used to guide treatment of this condition.

Abnormalities in the heart muscle can be inherited. Working together with genetic counselors, we are able to identify these abnormalities through genetic testing and guide the evaluation and of families affected by these diseases.

This disease causes the heart muscle to thicken, slowing its pumping action. We also offer alcohol septal ablation procedures to treat hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. We are the only medical center in Sacramento with the expertise to perform this nonsurgical procedure.

A specific inflammatory condition that requires specialized imaging and treatment by a multidisciplinary group of physicians. Appropriate diagnosis of this condition requires a PET CT and cardiac MRI to guide specific anti-inflammatory therapy.

This disorder involves high blood pressure in the lungs, which causes the right side of the heart to weaken. Our heart failure specialists work closely with lung disease specialists to evaluate and treat this condition.

Patients with heart failure may become pregnant where pregnancy may cause heart failure in a small proportion of patients. Our heart failure specialists, OB-GYN specialists and a critical care team work together during pregnancy and develop an individualized plan of care depending of your cardiac care needs.

While heart failure is often related to the weakening of the heart, a large proportion of patients develop a stiffness of the heart which is also a form of heart failure. In some cases, this requires a specialized approach to ruling out conditions with specific treatments such as cardiac amyloidosis or hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

Contact us

For appointments, please call 1-800-2-UC-DAVIS (1-800-282-3284) or connect with one of our heart and vascular specialists.